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THE LOVE CHILD 


By the same author 
SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 


THE LOVE CHILD 


By 

BERTHA PEARL MOORE' 




> 


> 


New York 

THOMAS SELTZER 
1928 


0-lp^\ 





• \ 


COPYRIGHT, 1923, by 
THOMAS SELTZER, Inc. 


All rights reserved 


Printed in the United States of America 


SEP -4 ’23 > 

©C1A752903 


. j, kr.tj 



BLAINE FREE MOORE 















CONTENTS 

PAGE 

BOOK I .1 

BOOK II .63 

BOOK III .118 

BOOK IV . 190 
















THE LOVE CHILD 


BOOK ONE 

I 

O F late Annie had begun to ask questions— 
not the questions that talkative children 
ask their elders, but the questions that children 
in their teens begin to ask themselves. 

Had God made a world for people to be happy 
in, a world in which things should be right ? And 
if He had, then why had so much gone wrong? 
Why weren’t people happy? Why couldn’t she 
be happy? Why wasn’t her father happy? And 
her mother—why was she always so irritating? 
Why? Why? 

She looked about her at the squalid surround¬ 
ings in which she lived, had lived in fact almost 
all the fourteen years of her life. A broken table, 
four broken chairs, a broken ice-box, a clock, the 
inevitable calendar fixed by a rusty pin to the 
wall—the shabbily bare surroundings of the great 

mass of New York’s East Side families. 

1 


2 


TEE LOVE CHILD 


“Why?” she wondered. Her head ached and 
she drew her hand slowly over her forehead. Her 
eyes fell upon pretty five-year-old Nina scramb¬ 
ling to her feet from where she had been sitting 
on the bare wooden floor. A smile transfigured 
Annie’s face when she heard the plaintive child 
voice call: “Ann, what’s this?” There was 
abounding love in her eyes as she watched the 
little girl skip across the room, holding in her 
hand a picture post-card. She received Nina 
tenderly into her lap. 

“This,” answered Annie, earnestly examining 
the card, “ is an angel.” 

How dear to Annie’s ears sounded the familiar 
squeak of surprise. How dear the wide innocence 
in the large hazel eyes. “A angel!” You would 
have thought this was the first time the golden¬ 
haired, winged creature against a sky-blue back¬ 
ground, with pink roses underfoot, had been de¬ 
scribed to her as an angel. Nina had a way, 
delightful to Annie, of asking the same question 
over and over again, receiving the same answer 
each time as though it were new to her. 

“Yes, an angel,” repeated Annie, kissing the 
baby. If Annie still retained anything of her 
childhood’s faith in angels, it was because of Nina. 

And then came a new question, which brought 
a serious expression into Annie’s face: “What’s 
a angel?” 

Annie could not answer this so readily. At 


THE LOVE CHILD 


3 


last she said, ‘ 1 Good little children who have died 
and gone to heaven/’ and she watched the subtle 
expression that played over the little girl’s face, 
aware that Nina, in turn, was studying her own. 
Annie was lovely looking. Her eyes were a limpid 
blue, with long dark lashes and finely arched eye¬ 
brows. She had rather protruding cheek bones, 
full lips and a fine square chin. 

“Who made a angel, Ann?” asked Nina. 

“God—I—I—guess . . .” faltered Annie, 

reluctantly. The strange thoughts that had come 
to her of late on the place of God in a badly dis¬ 
ordered world annoyed her when they stood so 
stubbornly in the way of her ready answers to 
Nina’s questions. 

“What else did God make?” 

Still more reluctantly, though more resolutely, 
Annie answered, “Everything, dear.” 

“Ev’ything?” cried Nina. A ruffle of incred¬ 
ulity darkened her forehead. She seemed to stif¬ 
fen against the answer as something preposterous. 
And then she shot one of those startling questions 
of the five-year-olds that have struck awe in the 
hearts of wiser people than Annie: “If God made 
ev’ything den who made God?” 

There stumbled through Annie’s mind a dim 
recollection of something she had heard—that 
children who are too brilliant die young. Vague 
terror seized her. She laughed a frightened laugh 
and strained Nina to her. Kissing her over and 



4 


THE LOVE CHILD 


over again, she cried in a smothered voice: 
“You’re so smart, it’s awful.’’ She gritted her 
teeth in a veritable agony of feeling. “Annie 
loves her better ’n anything or anybody or—or 
anything. ’ ’ A hot nervous flush suffused Annie’s 
face. The emotion made her head ache more, but 
she smiled while Nina laughed the amused, pleased 
laugh of a child. 

The laugh roused their father who, dull with 
recent drinking, sat dozing in the same room, the 
room-of-all-affairs, his bulky body overflowing 
the chair. He opened his melancholy brown 
eyes, rolled them sleepily, opened them wider and 
stared vacantly. 

Both children sat stone-still watching him. 

Twice Yekel raised and let fall his right foot, 
in which he frequently had rheumatic pain. Queer, 
thought Annie, that he had not taken off his shoes 
before going to sleep, as was his habit. She 
watched Yekel raise his hand to his head and 
stroke his rough brown hair, then drop his hand 
limply back upon his knee. From his complete 
relaxation it was apparent that he was again 
asleep. Annie whispered to Nina, “Come, let’s 
go into the bedroom so he can’t hear us talk and 
maybe w r ake up again.” 

“Aw right,” Nina whispered back. 

Annie took Nina’s hand and they tiptoed across 
the room. When they reached the door of the 
bedroom, Annie stopped suddenly and whispered, 



THE LOVE CHILD 


5 


“Wait a minute, Nina.” She let go the girl’s 
hand, tiptoed back to where her father sat, and 
sank lightly down on her knees. With deft fin¬ 
gers she unlaced the shoes and in a twinkling had 
them off his feet. Yekel did not stir. 

The next moment Annie and Nina had taken 
refuge in the bedroom. 


II 

Mira and Gussie and Libbie emerged from a 
tenement on Delancey Street where they had paid 
their weekly visit to an ailing relative. As usual, 
they stood a moment silently on the curb, while 
Mira made up her mind on the momentous ques¬ 
tion of what to have for supper. 

“Hurry, mama,” urged Gussie, “it’s cold.” 

“I think I’ll have milk supper,” said Mira. 

Said Gussie, “I like it very much,” with an in¬ 
tonation that denoted both apathy and courtesy. 
Gussie was a daughter of the old school; she 
was the first-born of the Cohen children; had been 
brought to America a young girl, and was now 
a grown woman of twenty-two. 

“Ah, yeh, ma, milk supper; I like it too,” 
coaxed the younger Libbie, eagerly peering up 
into the faces of her elders, smacking her lips 
in anticipation of the treat. 

“Then you go get the bread and butter,” said 
Mira. 


6 


THE LOVE CHILD 


“Sure,” Libbie acquiesced readily, bopping 
from one foot to the other because of the cold. 

“And you,” said Mira, addressing Gussie, “go 
straight home. I’m so worried about Annie. 
She was complaining she had a headache, and 
she really looked green and yellow in the face. 
And then Nina—when I leave her alone I keep 
thinking every minute: Now she scalded her¬ 
self ; now she burned herself; now she fell out 
of the . . .” 

“Oh, ma,” interrupted Gussie gently, a trou¬ 
bled look in her eyes, “you worry so much. 
Nothing like that ever happens.” 

With a fatalistic nod of the head Mira ans¬ 
wered, ‘ 1 1 wouldn’t worry if I had a husband like 
other women and you children had a father like 
other children. But he would be drunk no mat¬ 
ter what, and if the roof were falling on his 
child’s head he couldn’t tell her to look out. No, 
his tongue wouldn’t work.” But there was no 
bitterness in her tone. 

Gussie sighed sympathetically. That satisfied 
Mira. Sympathy automatically checked her com¬ 
plaints. “You go straight home, Gussie,” she 
switched back again, “and you, Libbie, go get 
the bread and butter.” 

“All right,” said Gussie and turned and left. 

Libbie held out her hand for money. 

“Get a rye bread,” said Mira. 

“Ah no, a pumpernickel.” 


THE LOVE CHILD 


7 


“Aw right, a pumpernickel,” chopped Mira 
in reply, depositing the coin with unwonted en¬ 
ergy in Libbie’s hand. Mira hated counter sug¬ 
gestions. 

Libbie inhaled deeply, bent to pull up her 
stocking, and then skipped away. 

“A loaferke, ” thought Mira, but not without 
lowe in her heart. She adjusted the shawl over 
her bony shoulders, turned and headed for Hester 
Street, the Home for Disabled and Diseased Mer¬ 
chandise, thinking, “Boiled potatoes—sour cream 
—herring—that will be a nice supper.” 

Once Mira’s mind was made up as to just 
what she had to buy, she began fairly to whip 
her way through the streets, headed straight for 
Kupperman’s cellar. 

A preposterous place for business was Kup¬ 
perman’s cellar, wrapped in midnight, the walls 
mouldy and bare, the floor by the doorway occu¬ 
pied by a few barrels, the inner regions stretch¬ 
ing away like the corridors of the lost. The 
barrels held herrings whose tragedy lav in more 
than the fact that once they had known the free¬ 
dom of the sea. They were discriminated 
against according to their class! First class her¬ 
rings lay packed nicely in new-looking barrels; 
second class in a barrel that reeked with age, 
and third class ones lay about on boards here, 
there, everywhere. Mr. Kupperman was the 
Power that decided in which class a herring 


8 


THE LOVE CHILD 


should belong, and in this he was guided by the 
herring’s sex and smell. Herrings male and fe¬ 
male of an alien odor were consigned to third 
class automatically. Male herrings smelling 
their own proper smell, belonged to the second 
class. Female herrings, committing no indis¬ 
cretions of odor were, because of their especial 
tenderness, elevated to the first class. 

‘ 4 Good morning, Mr. Kupperman. How is a 
good Jew?” flattered Mira, her eyes narrowing 
in the half-light. Mr. Kupperman, Hester 
Street’s herring-dealer-in-chief of those days, 
was a much abbreviated gentleman, humped up 
on a box in the rear of his shop, his greenish- 
black coat spotted with herring brine and dotted 
with herring scales. He lifted small brown eyes 
out of a wilderness of brown, rough fuzz. 

“Ah, nu, a good Sabbath to you,” he echoed, 
friendly, rising and coming briskly forward. “I 
haven’t seen you for years with yearlets. 
Thought you forgot me and the herrings.” 

“Forget? The taste of the last is still in my 
mouth.” By flattery, Mira was paving the way 
to a bargain. Then, hesitatingly, “Nu, what kind 
of herrings have you got to-day?” she asked. 
She cleared her throat, threw up her chest. 

The herring chief clicked his tongue, rolled his 
eyes, wagged his head, waved his hands: “Her¬ 
ring—it’s a pleasure!” he said, and led the way 
to the goods whereof he spoke. 


THE LOVE CHILD 


9 


“Not thesel” cried Mira. She had a fleeting 
suspicion that Mr. Kupperman was leading her 
to the third class. 

“God forbid!” sang he, and spat out, “I 
wouldn’t sell you these, not to you, not I. Ut, 
these are the ones I mean.” And, love-light in 
his eyes, he held a female herring up by the tail. 
“Smell it—smell,” he said, swinging the fish 
under Mira’s nose. “It will melt in your mouth, 
soft like butter, no better herring in the world, 
I should be so well.” His free hand patted his 
meager breast. 

Mira, head well back, tongue teasing at her 
lower lip, regarded the herring and remained 
non-committal, for it would not do to encourage a 
rise in price. “It’s an especially fine herring,” 
she thought. Then, eyes averted, with no ink¬ 
ling of her thought in her tone, “How much is 
it?” she said. 

A moment’s pause. Mr. Kupperman looked as 
though he were figuring a sum in higher mathe¬ 
matics. Here was a dealer whose quotations de¬ 
pended solely on the haggling qualities of the 
purchaser. “Six cents,” he snapped at last. It 
was a sum double what he expected to get for it. 

“Six cents?” Mira’s voice rose and swelled 
richly. You would have thought she had been 
called upon to pay for it with her life. 

The herring chief jerked his shoulders a little 
nervously, ducked his head, stroked his beard. 



10 


THE LOVE CHILE 


i ‘So how much then do you want to pay?” he 
asked in a low voice. 

“Two cents and not a hairlet more,” snapped 
Mira, tense, mistress of herself, drawing her 
shawl closer about her bony shoulders. 

With what derision Mr. Kupperman barked: 
41 Haw! Go! Two cents! It will pay me better 
to throw it to the cats. Then at least I will be 
doing charity.” With a sudden lift of the chest 
he added, “If you want the cheapest, why don’t 
you pick out the worst? If you want the best, 
why do you offer the price of the cheapest? Go— 
go elsewhere. There are plenty of other herring 
shops.” 

A moment’s pause. 

From Mira: “Every time I come, you tell 
me the same thing. And if I would want to go 
without buying I swear you would run after me 
and give it to me for half.” 

Mr. Kupperman glanced up, wrinkled his fore¬ 
head. They stood looking into each other’s eyes, 
measuring up opposing forces. At last Mr. Kup¬ 
perman stooped, picked up a piece of paper from 
the floor, wrapped the herring, held it out to 
Mira. 

“Take it for three cents,” he said, and their 
eyes met in a cool glance. 

Silently Mira groped in her purse for a nickel. 
Silently Mr. Kupperman gave her the change. 
Silently Mira placed the herring in the crook of 


THE LOVE CHILD 


11 


her arm. Silently she began to ascend the flight 
of stairs leading np to the street. 

“Gate gesunter hade called the herring chief 
gently. 

“Hut zich mir a guten zeit zich,” answered 
Mira facetiously. 

In the stronger light of the street, Mira stood 
blinking. 

Upon her ears thundered “Penneness! Hep- 
pies! Ornitzes!” (Bananas, apples, oranges.) 

4 ‘ Five a penny, missus, five a penny. ” . . . 

“Fish! Fish! Lebedicka fish! Tzeep!” (Fish, 
fish, live fish, cheap.) . . . “Twelve cents a 
pound, women, twelve cents a pound, women /’ At 
last Mira opened wide her eyes. 

Behold, against a background of dilapidated 
houses with window displays of silks, satins, 
woolens, a ragged line of pushcarts overflowing 
with sickly foodstuffs, from pickles to bread; 
wearing apparel, from shoes to coats; household 
utensils, from graters to stoves. Hawkers of both 
sexes, sallow and ruddy, sensitive and coarse, 
clean and filthy, huddled in fur-lined shabbiness 
or layers of cloaks and shawls, stand behind 
the pushcarts, rubbing hands, slapping thighs. 
Behold Hester Street! 

“I’ll get me the potatoes next,” decided Mira, 
and whipped down left to Mrs. Rasha’s pushcart. 
Mrs. Rasha was a dumpy little person, brisk, bold, 
and the bread-winner of a family of five. 


12 


THE LOVE CHILD 


i ‘Aw, such a cold, a bitter cold.” Mrs. Kasha’s 
lips were so frozen she could scarcely talk. 

“God will give the miracle that the potatoes 
will be frozen,” ventured Mira. Here, too, she 
was paving the way to a bargain, but this time by 
disparaging in advance the quality of the goods. 

“They are not frozen, they are not frozen,” 
came the swift reply as Mrs. Kasha whisked a 
muddy covering from the face of her specialty. 

They were not frozen. Mira had not the cour¬ 
age to outrage fact. 

“Five pounds is how much to-day?” she ven¬ 
tured feebly. 

“Ten cents.” 

“Nine.” 

“Ten.” Mrs. Kasha threw the muddy cover 
swiftly back over her goods as if she had no 
intention of selling after such an affront. 

“What’s the matter all of a sudden ten cents? 
The day before yesterday it was only nine.” 

Mrs. Kasha turned upon Mira with something 
of the swiftness of wind. “The day before 
yesterday was a day and to-day is another day,” 
she flung out, singsong. 

“To God they are all alike,” said Mira. 

“But not to potatoes,” snapped Mrs Kasha. 

“I got up in the ice coldness of three o’clock 
in the morning and I rode to the market, stiff 
inside and out. I stood on my feet in line till 
my eyes came out of my head. And 1 paid eight 


THE LOVE CHILD 


13 


and a half cents. Maybe I ought to sell it to you 
for nine and give you humble thanks yet?” 

“Don’t stand there twisting my head. Nine 
cents and plenty it is. Now are you going to 
give it to me? I can’t stand waiting all day. I’ll 
go elsewhere if it suits you better.” Mira had 
stiffened under her shawl. 

“Go and be well,” spoke Mrs. Rasha. 

“All right, I will.” And Mira turned to go. 
She walked a pace. Mrs. Rasha suffered a change 
of heart. 

“Nu, nu, come here already,” she called meekly 
and, as Mira returned, Mrs. Rasha said what she 
always said on such occasions: “May God give 
me and my children health and happiness, I am 
losing money on you. But who wants to insult 
a steady customer?” This last with a rise of the 
eyebrows and a sidewise jerk of the head. Quickly 
weighing five pounds of potatoes, she handed the 
bag to Mira with a sigh, holding out her hand 
for coin. 

This chapter ended, another began. “How is 
your man to-day?” Mrs. Rasha asked in a per¬ 
sonal tone, while she dug in her pocket for Mira’s 
change. 

“My man? He ts,” responded Mira. 

“Keeps sober?” 

“Sober as a bug in kerosene.” 

A wistful smile. 

“The children?” asked Mrs. Rasha. 


14 


THE LOVE CHILD 


“Annie I left sick. I must really liurry home.” 

“ What fails her V’ 

“Headache/’ said Mira. 

“Not so terrible. Nu, good-by.” 

Mira’s good-by was not so readily forthcoming. 
She had yet to bob the bag of potatoes up and 
down and to ask if Mrs. Rasha were sure she had 
given the proper weight. 

“Of course it’s right. What do you think?” 

There was a moment of suspended judgment 
that broke like a bubble with the puckering of 
Mira’s forehead, followed by a nod as if to say 
she supposed it was all right. In reality she 
thought the bag weighed more. 

“Ah guten by,” she said at last and left, feel¬ 
ing satisfaction like the rise of dawn in her heart 
for the bargains she had made. 

Ill 

When Gussie came home, Yekel w T as still asleep 
in the chair, and -when she peeped into the bed¬ 
room she discovered Annie, with Nina in her 
arms, asleep on the bed. Annie’s headache had 
finally drawn her to the bed to lie down, and 
as Nina was seldom averse to doing anything 
Annie did, she too had scrambled on to the bed 
and had also fallen asleep. 

Gussie drew a chair over to the window and, 
sitting down, looked out on the street. When, 


THE LOVE CHILD 


15 


a little later, she saw Libbie arriving with the 
bread and butter in her arms, she rose and went 
to the door and, holding it slightly ajar, stood 
looking into the hall. As soon as Libbie came 
into sight on the stairs, she whispered, “Don’t 
make a noise. They’re asleep.” 

Libbie came into the house softly, and softly 
placed the parcels on the table. Scarcely had she 
done this when Mira opened the door in her sharp, 
abrupt way. Before she had a full foot set in 
the room she had already cried, “Fui, the cold 
kills me. My hands are frozen,” and, letting the 
door close with a bang, she asked, “how is Annie? 
Where is Nina?” 

With a deep snort, Yekel awoke. Mira glanced 
toward him and caught his blood-shot eyes. She 
looked away with an expression of disgust she 
didn’t feel and exchanged a commiserating glance 
with Gussie. Then she moved over to the table 
where she noisily deposited her purchases, Gussie 
helping her. 

“A disease upon bummers,” Mira muttered. 
She never cursed her own specifically, but always 
indirectly. “All day he was sleeping off his 
souse.” Though she didn’t have a feeling in the 
world on the subject by now, so used to Yekel’s 
waywardness was she, it was second nature for 
her to complain. She loved the aura of martyr¬ 
dom it created around her. 

“S-sh!” said Gussie coneiliatingly. 



16 


THE LOVE CHILD 


Mira was tired, and somehow Gussied concilia¬ 
tory manner, this time, made her temper flare: 
i ‘Don’t ‘sh-sh’ me!” she cried. “You hear? 
One doesn’t ‘sh-sh’ one’s mother.” Her voice 
rose shrilly. 

Gussie dropped her eyes. 

Mira’s loud voice awakened Nina and Annie. 
Annie sat bolt upright, full wakefulness coming 
to her in a moment. She strained to hear whom 
her mother was admonishing. Was it her father? 

“Mama’s mad!” whispered little Nina in an 
awed voice, snuggling against Annie. x 

In the silence that followed Annie could hear 
her mother whipping about the room-of-all-af- 
fairs. All her movements w T ere so sharp and 
noisy. A feeling of faint disgust involuntarily 
coursed through Annie’s being. Her mother was 
a fault-finder, a busy-body, a haggler. Then she 
became aware of stinging pains in her head and 
chills shooting up and down her spine. With a 
sigh she lay down again. So did Nina. 

They heard their father’s heavy tread. He 
stopped where the table must be. They heard the 
flow of water. He must be pouring himself a 
glass of water from the pitcher . . . Crash! 

The pitcher broken! 

Their mother’s sharp, shrill voice: “Look at 
him, he hasn’t slept off his souse yet. A perfectly 
good pitcher broken! Wooden hands he has!” 

Annie and Nina both jumped off the bed. 


THE LOVE CHILD 


17 


4 ‘What’s a madder with mama anyway, I won¬ 
der ? ’ ’ wailed Nina. ‘ ‘ She’s all mad! ’ ’ And then 
she added with knowing disgust, “Aw, it’s coun’a 
papa, betcha ’cause he’s always drunk. I hate 
papa; he’s a bum.” 

“Sh! You mustn’t say that,” said Annie. 
This w r as the one point on which they did not al¬ 
ways agree, these two. How could Annie always 
take papa’s part, all the time? Nina frequently 
wondered. 

Annie took Nina’s hand and walked with her to 
the room-of-all-affairs, wdiere Mira was already 
stooping over the broken pieces of pitcher to get 
them out of the w T ay. Lifting a piece carelessly, 
she cut her finger. She jerked the bleeding fin¬ 
ger up to her mouth and shot, a straight, lean, 
red headed, angry thing, up from the floor. 

“For him I must cut myself,” she cried in mis¬ 
ery. “God mine, cut your own finger, you-” 

Just then she caught Annie’s wounded glance. 
“It’s not papa’s fault if you cut your finger,” 
said Annie softly and, dropping Nina’s hand, 
proceeded to finish the task her mother had begun. 

Out of the drunken fog that still weighed down 
upon Yekel, he recognized his daughter’s sym¬ 
pathetic protectiveness, and the heart of him re¬ 
coiled, ashamed. He felt himself unworthy. He 
was a drunkard and deserved Mira’s censur¬ 
ing. Sadness, remorse, a sense of futility, like 
aged things, dragged through his soul. 



18 


THE LOVE CHILD 


Mira, in whom a flame of temper never had 
more than a moment’s life, immediately became 
silent and proceeded to set the table. The wound 
on her finger was so superficial it did not need 
any real attention. Because of the pallor of An¬ 
nie’s face, she watched her with concern as she 
went hack and forth from the table to a far end 
of the room where the garbage can stood, to de¬ 
posit the broken pieces of crockery. 

“How is your headache!” Mira asked at last. 

Annie did not answer. 

“How is your headache!” repeated the mother. 

From the corner of the room where he had 
seated himself again, Yekel strained to hear the 
reply. 

“It’s bad,” answered Annie. 

A frightened look came into the mother’s eyes. 
Headaches frightened Mira. Of diseases begin¬ 
ning -with headaches several of her children had 
died. A tragic look came into the father’s eyes; 
Annie was his all. A silence of suspense fol¬ 
lowed. Then, “Don’t walk any more,” said Mira. 
“Seat yourself.” 

Nina advanced into the room. “Come play 
wid me,” she pleaded, looking up at her sister. 

Annie sat down with her on the floor. Nina 
burst into sudden exultant song: “I teast it, I 
tast it, I sawn a yellow basket . . . ” 

“No singing, Nina,” said Annie, holding her 
hand up to her head. 


THE LOVE CHILD 


19 


“Play a game den,” pleaded Nina. 

Said Annie, “Let’s play ‘My mother said—’ ” 

They clapped opposite hands. 

“My mother said 

“I should not 

“Play with the gypsies 

“In the ivoods; 

“If I would 

“She would say -” 

Yekel watched Annie with brooding concern in 
his eyes, and his concern heightened when Annie 
cried, breaking the game oft abruptly: 

“Oh, I’m going to lie down again. My head is 
splitting and I feel awful.” She rose. 

Said Gussie, “Aren’t you going to eat sup¬ 
per?” 

“Eat a little,” said the mother. 

“I can’t,” said Annie. 

“Then,” said Mira decisively, “you must take 
castor oil. If you can’t eat, it’s not a headache 
alone, it’s an internal sickness you’ve got, and 
an internal sickness castor oil cures.” 

Annie thought with annoyance, “Always she 
knows everything.” Aloud, she said, “I won’t 
take castor oik I hate it! ” and went out of the 
room, her father’s eyes lovingly following her. 

Mira happened to catch Yekel’s glance and in 
it she thought she read approval of Annie’s re¬ 
fusal. Hot resentment sent a flush to her face. 

“Everybody go to the table,” she snapped. 



20 


THE LOVE CHILD 


Gussie, Libbie and Nina obeyed immediately. 
Yekel put on bis shoes in his slow way, never 
even remembering he had not taken them off, and 
then moved slowly toward his place and sat 
down. 

In complete silence supper went forward. 
When the meal was almost finished, there came 
a moan from the bedroom. The mother and 
father exchanged swift, anxious glances. There 
came another moan. 

Each saw the other turn pale and both followed 
an impulse to go and look in on Annie. Mira was 
first to reach the girl’s side. “What is the mat¬ 
ter V 9 she asked, bending over her. 

Annie moaned a third time, but in her 
sleep, as both Yekel and Mira perceived at 
once. What a relief! The massive wrinkles 
on Yekel’s face cleared up; patches of red took 
the place of Mira’s pallor. She was first to turn 
and leave. Yekel lingered a moment, then left 
too, one of his garters trailing after him on the 
floor. 


IV 

It was not merely that Annie had refused 
what was for her own good that worried Mira. 
Somebody had refused to do her bidding—that 
hurt her too. Mira was one of those persons 
who decide the fates of others as naturally as 



THE LOVE CHILD 


21 


they breathe, and cannot stand being crossed in 
their decisions. She was of those who are en¬ 
tirely confident of themselves, tremendously effi¬ 
cient, and actually capable of offering good ad¬ 
vice more often than not. If Mira said that Annie 
should take castor oil, Annie should, without any 
opposition, have taken it. So Mira kept think¬ 
ing as she went about clearing the dishes from 
the table, washing them, straightening up the 
room. And the same thought was with her all 
through the evening until at bedtime she had 
firmly decided that Annie should be forced to 
obey. 

The Cohens lived in three rooms linked rail¬ 
way fashion. There was the room-of-all-affairs, 
that room of the East Side flats in which occurs 
everything, from day-dreaming to death, whose 
two small windows looked out upon Division 
Street, with its clatter of elevated trains, its dirt, 
dust and smells. A procession of three chairs, set 
against one of these windows, comprised Annie’s 
sleeping quarters. On a cot set nightly in the 
middle of the room, Gussie slept. 

Adjoining the room-of-all-affairs was the bed¬ 
room, containing the one real bed in the house. 
This room was shared by husband and wife. 

Upon a mattress on the floor of the one other 
room, little Nina and Libbie slept. This was the 
parlor, holding a few pieces of worn maple fur¬ 
niture and a shabby green plush lounge, its single 


22 


THE LOVE CHILD 


window close up against the red brick cheek of 
another tenement. 

As a rule, Gussie and Annie attended to the 
making up of the sleeping places at night. This 
night the task fell to Mira and Gussie. Mira, in 
the haste with which she always did everything, 
happened to strike her cut finger against Gussie’s 
cot as she was setting it up, and the sharp pain 
of it brought fury from her tongue against her 
husband who sat apparently so complacent in 
his corner, as if he had not the slightest concern 
with what was going on about him. 

“Why are you sitting there so like a king? 
Can’t you stand straight enough on your legs to 
help too?” she hurled at him. 

So suddenly addressed, Yekel was startled. 
His wife’s words not being in the least clear to 
him, he frowned and turned his back. This made 
Mira really angry. 

“A father!” she flung at him bitterly. “His 
child is sick and he can’t even make her do what 
her mother says is good for her. A father like 
a lump of-” 

Yekel, keeping his eyes averted, slowly rose 
from his chair and clumped out of the room, a 
garter still trailing after him on the floor. 

Mira was reduced to silence until Annie, awak¬ 
ened by Gussie, came, looking pale and with 
heavy puffs of impending illness under her eyes, 
to take her place on the three chairs. 



THE LOVE CHILD 


23 


“Annie,” began her mother in a cajoling tone, 
her anger all gone, “take castor oil as I say and 
it will make you better.” 

Only half awake, all her senses dull, Annie felt 
disinclined to make any answer. 

“Can’t you answer ma!” snapped Libbie. 

“Really, one would think mama is younger 
than you,” observed the filial Gussie, “the way 
you disobey.” 

“Oh, please leave me alone,” Annie cried out 
despairingly. 

Yekel, hearing, felt his heart bound. Rather 
hastily, for him, he rose from the plush lounge 
in the parlor where he had seated himself, and 
went back to the room-of-all-affairs on the pre¬ 
tense of having left something behind. He kept 
slowly stirring about the room, something like 
a barge on water, shifting his eyes from one mem¬ 
ber of the family to the other, while they kept 
insisting upon Annie’s obedience and Annie con¬ 
tinued to hold out against them. At last .Mira 
turned to Yekel. “Where are you, father? Can’t 
you make her obey?” 

Yekel paid no attention to her, and hated him¬ 
self for it. He felt he ought to answer something, 
realizing full well how exasperating his silence 
must be. He sat down; he leaned forward, puff¬ 
ing, and with his heavy red hands began to un¬ 
lace his shoes. 

Annie got in between the covers of her bed 


24 


THE LOVE CHILD 


and, wearily turning her eyes toward the win¬ 
dow relaxed and lay very still. 

No one said a w r ord. 

Gussie, undressing rapidly, got into her cot. 

Nina went over to Annie and whispered, “Good 
night, Ann, you keep yourself we-el,” in that 
sweet, plaintive child voice of hers that carried 
this time a troubled note. 

“Good night, Nina,” answered Annie. 

Nina and Libbie went off to bed. At last Yekel 
rose and, shoes in hand, headed for the bedroom. 

Mira was in the act of taking off her shirt¬ 
waist. She stopped short and, watching him 
through tiny slits of blue eyes as he went out, 
thought, “If the house burned down, if the United 
States ran away, he would be dumb. A dumb 
man he is.” 


V 

The Cohens had been living in America ten 
years, having migrated from Russia. They had 
come six in number. The children w T ere Gussie, 
then twelve, Benjamin, eleven, a boy who stuttered 
and later ran away from home and never was 
heard from again, Annie, four, and Libbie, one. 
The five children who bridged the gap between 
Benjamin and Annie had all died. Nina was born 
in America. 

Because it was necessary for the family to 


THE LOVE CHILD 


25 


think of a livelihood immediately, Gussie never 
went to school in America. She spoke English 
brokenly when she spoke it at all, preferring the 
Yiddish, like her mother. She had been little 
affected by American influences. In her appear¬ 
ance and in her sentiments she was her mother 
all over again. But while her mother was swift, 
efficient, sharp-tongued, Gussie was slow, phleg¬ 
matic and gentle-spoken. Also, her hair instead 
of being straight, was wavy, and she was of a full 
figure. 

Libbie shared the qualities of both her sister 
and her mother. She was sharp-tongued or gen¬ 
tle-spoken in turn. She could be swift and effi¬ 
cient, or phlegmatic and inefficient. She was a 
nervous little girl, and might have been spirit¬ 
ually restless if there had not been just enough 
of her mother’s coarseness in her to save her. 
As it was, she blinked her eyes too frequently, 
kept her hands roving unnecessarily, ran where 
it would have been equally w T ell to walk, but not 
from inner stress of any sort. Physically, she 
was a diminutive reproduction of her mother— 
the same straight red hair, the same slits of blue 
eyes, the same thin, pale lips, the same pale skin, 
and the same bodily spareness. 

Nina, however, was a blending of the qualities 
of both her father and her mother, and Annie, 
not knowing why she did so, clung to Nina with 
an affection that was almost passion. 


26 


THE LOVE CHILE 


As for Annie, she was Yekel’s child alone. 

There was in consequence a division of sympa¬ 
thies in the family group. There was never a 
time when Annie’s desire to defend their father 
failed her, and in this Nina was frequently with 
her. There was never a time when Gussie and 
Libbie failed to feel that their mother had right 
on her side. 

When in the middle of the night following her 
disobedience of her mother, Annie sat up in bed 
and cried out, “Oh, my, I feel so sick!” the first 
thought that darted into the minds of the suddenly 
awakened Gussie and Libbie was, “See! If she 
had taken the castor oil as mama said-” 

Libbie, half naked, jumped out of her bed and 
stumbled into the room-of-all-affairs; at the same 
time Gussie, in a discarded summer dress for a 
nightgown, leaped from her cot. Next came Yekel, 
wearing an old long coat, and Mira in a worn 
shirt waist and a checked apron sewed up the 
back; they gathered around Annie in a concerned 
group. 

“Where does it hurt you?” cried Mira shrilly. 

“In my stomach,” wailed Annie, “and in my 
head.” 

Mira felt her daughter’s forehead, and then 
her neck. How hot they were! “I should have 
forced her to take the castor oil,” she lamented. 
“My God, she has a fever!” Mira was fright¬ 
ened of fevers; it was fevers that had finally 



THE LOVE CHILD 


27 


attacked those children of hers who had died. 
Poor Mira! No wonder she wrung her hands and, 
incidentally, threw her husband a hitter look. 

. . . And then she began to busy herself, going 

from one thing to another so fast that one could 
scarcely tell what she was doing for the swiftness 
of her movements. 

“Mama was right,’’ said Gussie. 

“You betcha mama was right,” echoed Libbie. 

Annie raised troubled eyes. 

To one side stood Yekel, his heavy cheeks sag¬ 
ging, his lower lip drooping, his melancholy 
brown eyes dumbly staring. He wanted to come 
forward and tell Annie he would protect her 
against whatever it was that assailed her, but 
the habit of long years of silence was too fixed 
in him. Standing idly to one side, his heavy 
lips slightly parted, his thick nostrils dilated, 
he had the appearance of a troubled, dumb 
animal. 

At last Mira reappeared by the side of the 
chair-bed. In her hand was a glass in which swam 
heavily the castor oil. At sight of it Annie fairly 
shrieked, “Ok, not that—give me anything— 
there are lots of other things—not that! I can’t 
take that! ’ ’ Her voice trailed off in a wail. 

Yekel tightened his fists. He wanted to go 
over and fling the wretched stuff from his wife’s 
hands and demand that she cease her ignorant 
activity, but he couldn’t. 


28 


THE LOVE CHILD 


“Take it!” said Gussie. 

“You better take it,” chimed in Libbie. 

Into Mira’s anxious mother breast leaped a 
resolution. She bent and pinched Annie’s nose. 
Annie was compelled to open her mouth, but she 
flung out her hands in wild resistance. 

Gussie grabbed Annie’s hands in hers. Annie 
flung her head about. Mira ordered Libbie to 
hold Annie’s head still. 

Here Yekel’s face underwent a curious spasm, 
and the words burst from him as if in spite of 
his desperate effort to keep them in: 

“You will not do this,” he said. He drew to 
Annie’s side, barring Mira. Gussie had to re¬ 
lax her hold on Annie’s hands. 

Husband and wife regarded each other silently, 
appraisingly. Through Mira’s breast coursed 
hatred and love, like two streams. For the fact 
that her husband was spurred to speech because 
of this particular child, Mira hated Yekel; but for 
the fact that he was opposing his masculinity to 
her, was mastering her, she oddly loved him. In 
reality, Mira loved Yekel. He had been her an¬ 
swer to the woman’s call for an opposite; no man 
could have been more so than Yekel. Common¬ 
place and prosaic herself, Mira had a vivid ap¬ 
preciation of the uncommonplace in her mate. 
Something told Mira there was depth to her hus¬ 
band. What it was that told Mira this she could 
not have said, for certainly what was apparent 


THE LOVE CHILD 


29 


in him—his drunkenness, his apathy, his detach¬ 
ment from the family,—did not reflect depth as 
Mira could see it. Perhaps it was YekePs un¬ 
failing silence which, as if it were a refusal to 
take cognizance of that world about him, smaller 
than his own, had taught Mira to regard Yekel 
as a man apart from other men. At any rate, Mira 
knew a man lived somewhere inside her husband. 
Something told her that had Yekel chosen 
he could have risen high above other men. He 
might even have been a musician as great as the 
world had ever known, for did he not play the 
fiddle “fine” by ear, with never any training? 
Oh, secretly Mira was proud of her husband. 
Though outwardly, when she was moved to self- 
pity, she complained of his shortcomings, at heart 
she rather took pride in YekePs unused potenti¬ 
alities. 

The fact was that whatever Mira’s spoken 
complaints, her real grievance was that she 
had never reached Yekel. He had married her, 
and that was all. Himself, he belonged elsewhere. 
She knew this, and resented it. Her nature re¬ 
quired that she should be wholly included every¬ 
where and that she should in turn wholly own. 
She had never owned all of Yekel. There was 
a man in him she had never reached, for all that 
she had borne him child after child. And she 
wanted to own all of him, from his lusty bigness 
and masculinity to that which she only faintly 


30 


THE LOVE CHILD 


glimpsed, and that eluded her real understanding 
like a shadow. 

The glass resting limply in her hand, she 
turned, a subdued creature, to her sick daughter 
whose close resemblance to Yekel struck her more 
than ever before. 4 ‘His very own,” she thought, 
with a pang in the heart. That same elusive 
something existed in Annie that existed in him. 
And, remembering Annie’s conduct of late, the 
mother was even more convinced of it. The girl 
sat around already, at this young age, silent, 
brooding, thinking. What did she think about? 
At random, Mira’s mind struck the word 
“fiddelech”; perhaps Annie was thinking about 
such impractical things as fiddles and playing— 
those things that would lead her, as they 
had her father, to ruin. The Mira that specu¬ 
lated thus was the fault-finding Mira, not the ad¬ 
miring one. And as Mira thought thus of Annie, 
it occurred to her how much better it would have 
been had Annie taken after her. Mira inwardly 
harbored a belief that this child of hers would 
yet come to rue her likeness to her father. The 
next moment, Mira was feeling an objectionable 
“fanciness” about both her husband and Annie, 
who had the impudence to close her out. She 
resented it. They had no right to exclude her; 
she was wife to one and mother to the other. 
They had no right to exclude her. Mira turned 
challenging eyes upon her husband. 


THE LOVE CHILD 


31 


“My devoted father/’ she cried, “have you a 
better remedy to offer?” 

“Yes,” said Yekel quietly, “I’ll bring a doc¬ 
tor.” He breathed heavily from the effort of 
talking. 

Annie, looking up at her father as he stood, a 
dignified statue before her angry mother, felt a 
wave of affection for him rise in her heart. “If 
only he were not a drunkard,” she thought, with 
a degree of sadness scarcely natural in one so 
young, “how I could love him. And if he only 
talked—let me know him—was a little like other 
fathers!” It was upon this reflection about her 
father that Annie’s emotions rose like a tide to¬ 
ward little Nina. Nina, dear, sweet little Nina! . 
. . A warm peace suffused Annie’s being. The 
need for love in her nature, Nina filled; she could 
not regret her father’s inadequacy for long with 
Nina to love and to be loved by. But a shadowy 
feeling of regret, of indefinable incompleteness, 
somehow clung to Annie. 

All this thought and emotion was the matter 
of a single moment, and immediately she woke 
to the fact that her pain had left her, that she was 
feeling very much better. 

“I feel much better,” she said buoyantly, “I 
don’t need the doctor at all, and no castor oil 
either. I haven’t got any pain any more at all. 
Go back to bed, everybody.” 

But her family lingered as if they were not so 


32 


THE LOVE CHILD 


ready to trust the alien enemy that had so re¬ 
cently stirred in their midst. 

“Beally are you better V’ asked Gussie. 

“All better ,’ 9 answered Annie, reassuringly. 

“Better so quick!” yawned Libbie and trailed 
herself off the scene, remarking as she left, 
“Fuss. Wakes everybody. Nothing.” 

Annie, looking after her, was reminded of her 
mother. She turned her eyes away as if she pre¬ 
ferred not to have encountered the reminder. 
Yekel, catching the expression that flitted over 
her face, felt himself lifted by it into her soul, 
which was of his world. “My love child,” he 
thought tenderly. He wanted to say something 
tender, gentle, to her; to take her in his arms. 
His whole being flowed out to her in love, but he 
stood, a dumb father, before her. At last he 
turned abruptly and went back to bed. 

Mira, throwing the castor oil away, followed 
him the next moment and took her place beside 
him on the bed that sagged in the middle and, 
with equal spite, bulged on both sides. 

Gussie turned off the light in the room-of-all- 
affairs and, sighing, also went back to bed. 

VI 

The Cohens were up unusually early the next 
morning. 

It was evident to everyone from the fact that 


THE LOVE CHILD 


S3 


Annie kept to her chairs and was quiet, that she 
had not recovered. But no one said anything 
about it, and no one asked her how she felt. 

Yekel, puttering about in the room, watched her 
anxiously out of a corner of his eye. He noted 
her pallor, the rings under her eyes; he counted 
the times she turned from side to side. Once he 
saw her screw up her face as with pain, and he 
nearly found the courage to go over and speak to 
her. 

Little Nina toddled in, wearing her rose colored 
night-dress made over from a waist of Gussie’s. 
She went to her sister and piped, ‘ ‘You sick al¬ 
ready V’ She always said “already ’’ when she 
meant “yet.” It was a mistake that Annie loved, 
that always sent adoration for the tiny mite of 
a sister bounding in her blood. 

But this time she did not even notice it. Though 
she was trying hard to conceal the fact, she was 
feeling quite ill. 

Yekel, noticing her indifference to Nina and 
realizing what it meant, felt his heart sink. 

At last Annie groaned softly. 

Yekel was startled into taking a step forward. 
He met Mira’s incisive blue eyes. Abruptly he 
turned his back. 

“Oh my!” Annie at last lost control over her¬ 
self. 

Yekel burst through his reticence. He went 
to Annie and bent heavily, clumsily over her. 


34 


THE LOVE CHILD 


“My childie, wliat hurts you?” he whispered 
hoarsely. 

“Oh, pa, my side,” wailed Annie. There came 
upon her a feeling that it lay with her father 
alone to save her from this demon that invaded 
her being. 

Suddenly the pain left her. She looked up into 
the brooding eyes of her father, into his anxious 
lined face. “Now it’s gone again,” she said. 
“Did you ever!” And she herself looked in¬ 
credulous. 

From little Nina came a gay little laugh. “All 
gone,” she cried merrily, and laughed again. 

All happened so fast that only Yokel’s anxiety 
had had time to catch fire. 

Mira busied herself preparing breakfast. 

Yekel finished dressing. 

Gussie dressed, ate, and left for work. 

At last, hat in hand, Yekel, coughing a self- 
conscious cough, shuffled to the door. For fully 
five minutes he had been fighting the every-day 
Yekel, that had gained the ascendency, to make 
room for the father who could go over to Annie 
and bid her good-by and bid her be better. He 
had failed. But there was still one victory he 
might have over himself. He felt that if he were 
already at the door, and could disappear immedi¬ 
ately afterward, he could best do what he had 
to do. 

Reaching the door, he stood fumbling for a mo- 


THE LOVE CHILD 


35 


ment with the knob. At last he coughed again, 
and between coughs he wedged in: 

“Mira.” 

Mira looked up from the table where she sat 
eating her meager breakfast of bread, the last 
night’s herring, and black coffee. A bombshell 
could not have startled her more than the sound 
of her name in her husband’s voice. He never 
addressed her so directly. 

“What?” she got out at last. 

“On the mantelpiece under a saucer, in the 
front room, I left a dollar for the doctor. You 
take Annie to the doctor to-day,” he said. 

His face underwent a quivering spasm. 

He opened the door sharply and was gone. 

Mira stared after him as if he had been a stone 
man who had suddenly developed the faculty of 
speech. Then her antagonistic self took posses¬ 
sion of her. “The bummer,” she thought, and 
hated Yekel. 

VII 

Emerging from the tenement, Yekel shook 
himself as if to throw off his anxiety, but the 
feeling persisted. Annie had never been sick 
before. He had secretly felt that it was because 
his blessing was always upon her. At what mo¬ 
ment, he brooded, had he been lax? As mentally 
he reviewed her pallor, heard again her moans, 
his anxiety became even more tense, until he could 


36 


THE LOVE CHILD 


scarcely bear it. “I should have stayed home 
and brought the doctor myself,’’ he thought, and 
stopped, half inclined to turn back. A vision of 
Mira’s mocking eyes came to him. “I’m exag¬ 
gerating,” he said to himself, “she has only a 
stomach ache. Children get stomach aches. She 
must have eaten a little something that didn’t 
agree with her. It’s nothing.” But misgiving 
held his heart prisoner. 

His nervous darting glances fell upon a sign, 
“Wines Whiskey Beer”. Electrically a new 
struggle began for him. “I won’t!” he muttered 
to himself. He started at once to walk again, 
keeping his eyes down, his lips set. “I won’t!” 
he repeated weakly. 

But suddenly, sharply he turned and made for 
the saloon. 

“Give me a whiskey,” he flung at the bar¬ 
tender, wiping his face of perspiration. His heart 
beating, Yekel waited for the bartender to serve 
him. With a trembhng hand he took the glass. 
He gulped one half of it down, and the rest he 
drank more slowly. He asked for a second glass, 
and that one he drank still more slowly. Over the 
third he lingered even longer. It seemed to bring 
him his wonted poise. He drank a fourth glass. 
He banged the empty glass down on the bar, 
nearly breaking it. He w T as angry. He had not 
wanted to drink. Something that was not of 
himself had forced him to it. 



THE LOVE CHILD 


37 


When he had taken up his change, he stood a 
moment collecting himself, then faced about 
sharply. He wiped his shaggy brown mustache, 
straightened stiffly, looked squarely about the 
room and then shambled to the door. 

% 

VIII 

Annie lay on her chair-bed, following her busy 
mother about with wistful eyes. “Will she take 
me to the doctor soon?” she wondered. “If she 
knew how sick I feel she would.” She closed her 
eyes wearily. Before her closed eyes she had an 
image of her mother darting about the room, “like 
a needle.” 

“Mama is so much busier when she does things 
than anybody else,” thought Annie fretfully. She 
opened her eyes. Her mind was a blank for a 
moment. She sighed and, closing her eyes again, 
turned her head toward the window. “Mama 
and papa are so different,” she thought. “I 
wonder why they ever got married. Papa—he’s— 
I don’t know, he’s different from mama.” Her 
father came and stood before her eyes, then her 
mother. “They are so different—mama’s every- 
dayish; papa’s different. If he spoke, I wonder 
what he’d say? You never got to wonder about 
mama; you know what she’s going to say.” 

How ceaselessly Mira went from place to place, 
from task to task. No one else would have done 


38 


THE LOVE CHILD 


it in quite that breathless way. A tiny feeling 
of disgust trickled through Annie’s heart. Then 
she felt guilty for it. Her mother w T orked so 
hard—with the children and the house and a 
drunken husband. How skinny she was—be¬ 
cause she worked so hard. Poor ma! A tender 
feeling invaded Annie’s soul. “I do love mama 
anyhow, too,” she thought, and wished she could 
get up and help her mother with her work. 

Nina was sitting on the floor, still as a mouse, 
her little face screwed up in an expression of in¬ 
tense earnestness, for she was battling with the 
laces of her shoes. 

Mira said, “I’ll finish it for you, Nina.” 

Annie interjected impulsively, “You have 
enough to do, ma. Nina has lots of time to do it 
herself.” 

Mira was always much pleased at any show of 
consideration. It intensified a feeling of martyr¬ 
dom she carried with her. Strangely, considera¬ 
tion always spurred her on to seek greater mar¬ 
tyrdom. “She is a child,” she answered 
evasively. 

“And you’re a tired mother,” responded Annie. 

“So I am,” acquiesced Mira. 

“Then let Nina do it alone,” said Annie. She 
added with feeling, “Oh, honest, ma, you’re good 
as anything to us. I hope when we grow up we ’ll 
be good to you.” 

“Go, go,” deprecated Mira. In reality, she 


THE LOVE CHILD 


39 


was delighted. She brushed the table vigorously. 

Nina, in whose mind lingered the sound of the 
word “alone” as it had come from Annie’s lips, 
laughed gaily and repeated aloud, “Alone,” as 
nearly like Annie had said it as she could. Then 
all at once she discovered she had a hair in her 
mouth. She began to spit. In a moment she was 
in a perfect frenzy, spitting wildly until she was 
free of the hair. She made a comical, adorable 
picture. Annie’s thoughts quickly turned from 
her mother and centered upon Nina: ‘ 4 Best of 
everybody in the world I love Nina, ’ ’ she thought, 
and she felt suddenly very rich in the possession 
of her. Nina seemed a gift almost too good to be 
real. Annie began to look forward to the time 
when Nina w r ould go to school, when she would 
need help with her lessons. What a joy it would 
be to help her, to be so much more closely bound 
up in her dear little life. If only there were a 
great deal more to do for her! A great love 
rose powerfully in Annie’s breast. “I love her, 

I love her-” she cried inwardly, while tears 

gathered in her eyes. “I’ll do everything in the 
world for her when she gets big. She is beauti¬ 
ful—so lovely—darling little Nina-” 

Her thoughts were interrupted by a chill that 
chased up and down her back. She shuddered. 

“Are you cold?” asked Mira with concern. 

“Yes, ma,” Annie replied listlessly. 

Mira fetched an old coat to lay across Annie. 




40 


THE LOVE CHILD 


/ 

At the sight of the greenish-black garment, musty 
smelling, with rusty strings of cotton where the 
buttons had once been, a wave of disgust swept 
over Annie. She was irritated. Her mother 
knew she hated this coat as a cover. ‘ ‘ Oh, mama, 
not that thing—I don’t want that thing to cover 
me. Take it away. ’ ’ And, despite herself, Annie 
felt a little of her disgust for the ragged garment 
transfer itself to her mother. Her father, now, 
she thought, would never have brought that coat 
—But she could not go on either with her thought 
or her feeling, for sheer weariness. The very next 
moment she began to palpitate with regret for 
having talked sharply to her mother. i ‘ Anyway, 
I feel warmer,” she said, looking up with a smile 
at Mira. The chill had in fact been succeeded by 
a flush of heat. 

Mira noticed that Annie’s eyes were quite clear. 
She looked much better than she had the day be¬ 
fore, she thought, and all concern somehow 
dropped away from Mira. A dozen uses to which 
she could put the dollar Yekel had left for the 
doctor danced like little figures in her mind. An 
inspiration seized her, tightened its hold, held 
her in an iron grip. 

“My daughter, I think,” she began, singsong, 
after a while, “the best thing is to take you to 
the dispensary. Doctors in the private are after 
profit. He’ll say you have a sickness even if you 
haven’t, to make me come back, and get the 


THE LOVE CHILD 


41 


money. In the dispensary they want to get rid 
of you. They make you get well quick, quick. 
I’ll take you to the dispensary, really. It’s bet¬ 
ter. Fui, on doctors! They’re money-makers, 
bloodsuckers.” While of this Mira was really 
quite convinced, her eagerness to save the dollar 
heightened her conviction. 

There was something in the very ring of the 
word dispensary that alarmed Annie. She knew 
it was a place akin to a hospital where, her mother 
herself had said, doctors, to gain skill, practiced, 
without conscience, upon the poor. How could 
her mother think of taking her to such a place! 

As if her mother read her thoughts, she said: 

“In a dispensary you don’t need to stay. I 
take you back with me. It’s not like a hospital. 
How can they do anything bad to you when I am 
all the time looking!” 

But Annie was not convinced. She did not 
want to go to the dispensary. Her father had left 
a dollar to pay for a visit to a doctor; her mother 
ought to take her to one. She wanted to say so 
but she knew her mother would cling to her reso¬ 
lution all the more were she crossed in it. Annie 
sighed acquiescence, but in her heart stirred in¬ 
voluntary bitterness. What followed a few 
moments later made Annie’s blood surge hotly 
in her temples, and brought words of flame to her 
tongue despite her efforts at self-control. 

Mira was dressing Nina. Nina never would 


42 


THE LOVE CHILD 


let her underwear be put on before she had on her 
shoes and stockings. It somehow did not seem 
correct to her to dress in any other way. In the 
middle of Mira’s efforts to get the too small shirt 
over Nina’s head, Nina sucked her stomach into 
a little cavern beneath her ribs and became im¬ 
mensely interested in her naval, as she often did. 
She put again to her mother the question she had 
asked many times before. “Oh, ma, what’s this?” 

“It’s a corkscrew that goes into your stomach.” 

“Tomac?” she asked, that incredulous squeak 
in her voice, cocking her small head to one side 
and thus interrupting Mira’s work. Mira some¬ 
how lost her patience and impulsively gave the 
little girl a whack on the cheek. 

“Keep your head straight,” she cried, crimson 
suffusing her face. “When your mother dresses 
you, don’t turn yourself and throw yourself 
around.” 

Nina was so shocked by the suddenness of the 
whack, that the breath left her tiny body. For a 
moment she stood as though turned to stone, and 
then a weird cry of pain shot out from her. 

Annie sat bolt upright. Her eyes blazed in¬ 
dignation. Her head reeled. 

“What did you hit her for?” she cried at her 
mother. ‘ ‘ She only asked you a question. ” Turn¬ 
ing to Nina, she stretched out her arms, “Come 
to me, Nina darling.” Her voice broke from sym¬ 
pathetic feeling for the child. 


THE LOVE CHILD 


43 


Nina toddled over to Annie, convulsive sobs 
racking her. She sank, an offended little person, 
across Annie. 

“No, no darling, sweetheart, pet. No. It’s a 
corkscrew that goes down into your tu mm y, ” 
Annie cooed, “a corkscrew.’’ 

Mira came to reclaim Nina. ‘ ‘ She has to do what 
a mama says,” she cried, but without anger. 

Annie held on to Nina. 

“What do you want her to do?” she flung up 
into her mother’s face. “You hit her for noth¬ 
ing; you hadn’t said she should do something 
she didn’t want to do.” 

“She’s got to get dressed.” All of Mira’s 
manner bespoke contrition. She added gently: 
4 ‘ And you too; in an hour I got to take you to the 
dispensary.” 

The cloud upon Nina’s horizon lifted. The 
mere mention of the dispensary was enough to 
lift it, to take her away from the wicked world 
into w T hich she had been pitched for a moment, 

“Gonne take Annie by the spencer?” she 
wailed. 

“Yes,” said the mother tenderly, “and you 
wasted my time by turning your head. That’s 
why I slapped you. ’ ’ 

“Aw right,” said Nina, “then I ain’t mad on 
you.” 

A laugh broke from Mira. She stood a frac¬ 
tion of a second beaming love upon the child, 


44 


THE LOVE CHILD 


and then her mother soul burst into music. She 
swooped down upon Nina, buried her in her lean 
arms, 44 My crown! My heart! My life! My child! ’ ’ 
she fairly groaned and crushed the baby to her. 

Then, suddenly, it was as if all the light had 
been turned off in Annie’s being. For a swift 
moment all went dark before her eyes. She could 
not bear to feel that Nina was also shared by her 
mother. She wanted Nina to belong to her alone. 
She needed her. Her whole being seemed ablaze 
with the need. The next moment she was herself 
again, wishing passionately that it w T ere time to 
go to the dispensary. She was so sick! 

IX 

Half an hour later Annie, all bundled up, Mira, 
all bundled up, for it was a cold, blustery day, 
and Nina tucked from head to foot in a red shawl, 
scarlet as blood, were trudging down the rickety 
tenement stairs. 

44 You,” Mira was saying to Nina, “will stay 
on the street and play with the other children 
till we come back.” 

44 Ef—ef—” responded Nina, 4 4 you gimme a 
penny for mixed tally like you said.” 

44 Yes,” said Mira, 44 that I’ll do. You are a 
good little girl and I’ll do that for you.” 

Peace had been re-established by this time. 

On the street Nina stood, an eager little body 


THE LOVE CHILD 


45 


on tiptoe, her hand raised, palm up, in anticipa¬ 
tion of the coin for which Mira was rummaging 
in her pocket. At last it appeared. Nina re¬ 
ceived it in her hand as a bird receives the gift 
of a crumb in its beak. Just like a little bird, 
too, she hopped away. In a moment Mira and 
Annie heard the small, piping voice: 

“Tag, yourn it; I’m playing tag wid you.” 

As Annie turned her head and glanced back at 
the child, a feeling that the world was a terribly 
empty place except for Nina, took hold of her. 
School seemed of no moment, and the home was 
drab and ugly except for Nina. Once more Annie 
was filled with gratitude for the possession of 
her little sister. 

X 

“Mama, I can’t walk any more,” wailed Annie 
when they were within a few blocks of the dis¬ 
pensary and, the snow notwithstanding, she 
sank down upon a stoop. 

Mira’s self-confident heart failed her for a 
moment. Annie looked pale as wax, and the 
rings under her eyes were purple. Should she 
have taken her daughter on this pilgrimage! The 
moment of agonizing uncertainty was followed 
by an inspiration. “I’ll carry you,” she cried. 
Lifting Annie, she lumbered along. Mira always 
insisted that a child’s need gave a mother super¬ 
human strength. 


46 


THE LOVE CHILD 


“Heavens! It’s as if I was a baby!” wailed 
Annie, and, “Ma, you’re so tired. Let me 
down . 9 9 

But Mira would not. 

A ragged gathering, blue-faced from the cold, 
had already assembled in a close-knit line out¬ 
side the dispensary door. 

Annie raised her head, opened her eyes wide, 
scanned the worried faces of the people standing 
in line waiting. The face of a young boy, cov¬ 
ered with pimples, caught her eyes. A nausea 
came over her. She turned her head. “Mama, 
you must be tired,” she said. “Let me stand up. 
I can now . 9 9 

“Sha!” replied Mira. 

Annie, turning her head, again glimpsed the 
boy’s pimpled face. A shrinking horror seized 
her and persisted. It was as if the people gath¬ 
ered here were themselves diseases, exuding an 
infectious morbidness. She shuddered. 

In the moment of Annie’s subtle sensations, 
Mira was experiencing the solid fear of perish¬ 
ing while she waited for her turn to obtain the 
ticket of admission. It was now only half past 
one o’clock; the door would not open until two. 
She was tempted to set Annie on her feet but— 
Mira’s eyes, swiftly roving, spotted a gap in the 
line close to the door. Hastily she made her way 
there, slipped into it, and stood breathing excit¬ 
edly. 


THE LOVE CHILD 


47 


u Ma, they’ll holler,” came Annie’s awed whis¬ 
per. 

Simultaneously a gruff female voice emanating 
from flesh bulging in all directions and covered 
with smeared khaki burst out in indignant sing¬ 
song : 

“Nu, what do you say to such cheek! We are 
standing here freezing for an hour already; she 
just came, and she has the cheek to push in 
ahead! ’ ’ 

Mira reddened. Shrewdly she observed the 
small dark-bearded man behind her, whose place 
she had usurped, and whose large brown eyes 
were abstractedly gazing into space. He was not 
one to quarrel. In a loud, sure voice, came her 
answer, “Really is that any of your business! 
It’s this man’s place I have taken, not yours. And 
if he sees I am a mother with a sick girl in my 
arms heavier than I am, and he takes pity and 
lets me in first, is it your business!” She might 
have been the victim of injustice, to judge from 
her tone. 

The khaki dressed woman excitedly pushed up 
from her forehead the piece of white flannel head¬ 
covering that had fallen too low. “She has yet 
the cheek to make herself out right! God Al¬ 
mighty!” she cried, and was going to add that 
Mira need not pretend ignorance of the fact that 
she had displaced everyone behind Leba Brody, 
the little dark-bearded man, when she caught 


48 


THE LOVE CHILD 


sight of the superintending policeman who, at¬ 
tracted by the voices, was slowly approaching, 
swinging his club. In the same moment Mira, 
too, became aware of him. So did Leba Brody. 
Immediately a common spirit of defensiveness 
animated all three. The policeman was a com¬ 
mon enemy. 

When the officer, approaching the khaki dressed 
woman, asked what the matter was, she blurted 
with nervous nonchalance, “No, ’se natting,” 
while with a trembling hand she again pushed 
up the piece of near-white flannel that once 
more had dropped too low over her forehead. 
Mira smiled ingratiatingly and innocently up 
at him, while the quiet of the tomb held all 
the rest. The officer loitered a moment, keeping 
on the alert, then moved on. The belligerents 
dropped their bone of contention and settled down 
to waiting. 

After a while, “Mama, let me stand up,” whis¬ 
pered Annie, as much out of distaste for such 
close proximity to her pugnacious mother as any¬ 
thing else. Mira hesitated, looked around. Cer¬ 
tainly it was safer to have it appear that the big 
girl couldn’t stand. But Annie was heavy. Mira 
yielded to temptation. Immediately Mira turned 
to the dark-eyed man behind her and opened a 
conversation with the shrewd intention of keep¬ 
ing his mind diverted. 

Leba Brody was holding by the hand a tiny 



THE LOVE CHILD 


49 


likeness of himself, whose other hand was in a 
sling. 

“That’s yonr little boy?” Mira asked. “He 
is the image of yon. What is the matter with his 
hand? Not, God forbid, broken?” 

The man looked down upon his Izzie’s up¬ 
turned face, bent and wiped the child’s watery 
eyes, looked up, sighed, “Yes, that’s my boy. Ten 
years he is old. ’ ’ He spoke slowly, dreamily, with 
a touch of diffidence. 

“What’s the matter with his hand?” repeated 

Mira. 

The man hesitated. “I’m a buttonhole maker 
and he helps—in the shop. He got a finger un¬ 
der the needle from the machine.” 

‘ 1 Oigh gewald! ’ ’ cried Mira, slapping her hands 
together, “don’t tell me any more; I’m fainting 
away. ’ ’ 

The man tapped his foot, shook his head, bit 
his lower lip, rolled his brown eyes, and said 
nothing more. 

Izzie held up his hand. “Betcha life it hoit,” 
he vouchsafed in a piping voice, “Ow! Ow!” He 
turned to his papa. “But I didn’t cried not a 
woid, did I, Pop?” he boasted, throwing Annie a 
shy glance. 

A sense of sickness went over Annie. She 
wanted to fly away from here. 

But just then the dispensary door opened, des¬ 
pite the early hour. Mira seized Annie’s hand 


50 


THE LOVE CHILD 


and, completely forgetting the brown-eyed man, 
left and took a place among the very first in the 
line. She came with the compelling force of a 
wind; there was no denying her; the woman 
whom she displaced this time did not even utter 
a word of objection. 


XI 

Behind an iron cage sat a straight-backed, pom- 
padoured woman with those lines about the 
mouth that come to unmated women, and to men 
disappointed in their ambitions. She was the 
dispensary clerk who gave or denied tickets of 
admission. She served her questions upon an 
ice cold tongue and received her answers with 
the least possible hospitality. Through that sieve 
one human being after another passed from the 
cold street into the House of Healing, a room 
stuffy and mouldy, filled with dilapidated oak 
benches, the walls smelly, marred, dirty; the 
ceiling low, the atmosphere chilly and unfriendly. 
But this cold, snowy day everyone was glad to 
get indoors no matter through what sieve. 

Dizzy, weary, feeling sick from the tips of her 
toes to the top of her head, Annie sank into her 
seat like a lump of lead. All she could say was 
“Oh!” but it came from the very core of her 
being. 

A small, pale, troubled woman who sat behind 


THE LOVE CHILD 


51 


Mira with her eleven-year-old daughter who suf¬ 
fered from hip disease, bent over and asked, 
“What fails her?” pointing at Annie. 

The distraught Mira glanced around. “I 
should know so of trouble,” she replied. “She 
fell into a heat in the night. ’’ 

“Only heat?” 

“Only! Yes.” 

“Nu, that should not be hard to cure,” the 
woman comforted, and went off into a tale of her 
little girl’s hip which countless dispensary visits 
had so far failed to cure. 

Chills shot up and down Annie’s spine. She 
hit her lip nervously, and, glancing sidewise at 
her mother, hated her for having brought her 
here. 

“Does she eat?” asked an interested third 
woman, toothless, and with the glassy eyes of a 
victim of exopthalmic goiter. 

“What she has eaten in a week, a bird could 
carry away on its tail,” replied Mira, her face a 
mass of troubled wrinkles. 

“My boy—the same thing,” sighed the other 
woman. 

Mira’s mind leaped to eager attention. 
“Really?” she cried, “really?” And no wonder 
Mira was eager. If she heard of enough other 
children afflicted as was Annie, the ailment would 
take on the aspect of an “ ubergang” (epidemic) 
and grow slight in importance. A malady dis- 


52 


THE LOVE CHILD 


tributed among the many makes each only a small 
shareholder. So do the Miras reason. Epidemics 
hold little or no terror for them. They make 
light of the matter, brush it away with the hand. 
“An ubergang—gur nit —” (An epidemic—noth¬ 
ing—). But it was not Mira’s good fortune to 
get a detailed answer, which alone would have 
sufficed to establish proof, for: 

“ONE—TICKET NUMBER ONE!” clanged 
upon the foul air of the smudgy room. 

Voices died out. Heads came forward. A dead 
hush fell. 

Annie felt herself grow rigid. As in a night¬ 
mare she saw a large lame woman labor up from 
her seat, struggle forward on crutches toward 
the door which had been flung open simultan¬ 
eously with the clanging of the voice. 

‘ 4 TWO! TICKET NUMBER TWO! ’ ’ 

A hunchback rose and stepped mincingly across 
the room. 

“THREE!” 

A little girl with a hectic flush, unaccompanied 
by anyone, who had sat nervously on the alert, 
jumped up and hastened forward, losing her 
breath on the way. 

“FOUR! FOUR! TICKET NUMBER 
FOUR!” 

A living skeleton with blue spectacles rose and 
felt his way to the door. 

“My goodness! Are these really people?” 



THE LOVE CHILD 


53 


They seemed like dismal phantoms that had 
flocked into Annie’s weary brain. 

“FIVE!” 

Mira jumped up in a flurry of excitement. “Our 
number,” she whispered to Annie nervously and, 
as if her nervousness were contagious, Annie fell 
into such a tremble that she could not rise. 

“Hurry up,” said Mira. Annie tried to get to 
her feet. One foot hit against the seat, her skirt 
caught. All her nerves were aquiver. 

“FIVE. SIX. SEVEN. EIGHT.” 

Mira, possessed by the fear that they were 
missing their turn, cried impatiently to Annie, 
“Come. Hurry. Annie. See.” 

Something seemed to snap in Annie’s head. 

A black blur came before her eyes. Was it 
she who was shrieking shrilly, “I can’t stand it. 
I can’t stand it. Take me home!” The voice 
sounded strange to her ears. . . . And was it 

she pouring forth a volley of abuse like hot lava? 
“You’re stingy. You’re mean to take me here. 
Papa gave you a dollar to take me to a doctor. 
You have no right to use it for anything else. 
This is a pest place—not for people-” 

XII 

The white-robed physician, a cynical smile 
playing under his shaggy mustache and dipping 
down into his beard, certain that the intelligence 



54 


THE LOVE CHILD 


of charity patients could always be pierced more 
effectively if one proceeded on the assumption 
that they were all deaf, flung questions and com¬ 
mands loudly, now at one, now at the other. 
44 Hands down. Head up. Hurts you here? 
Here? Is that here? No, that’s there. Chanter 
du —How old? Breathe deep. In, out. One, two. 
One, two. In, out . . .” 

It was as though he were juggling balls. 

His animation came to a dead halt when a hys¬ 
terical girl was brought in. 

And though there may be divers ways of deal¬ 
ing with hysteria, this physician had only one 
method. 44 Now shut up,” he cried. 44 Hear me? 
This is no place for nonsense.” 

It acted like a brake upon the action of machin¬ 
ery. Annie came back to herself with a swift, 
sudden jerk. Her sobbing ceased instantly, but 
it seemed to turn back into her, and a dead-weight 
of bitterness seemed to descend upon her chest. 

44 Don’t yell at me, sir,” she said with dignity, 
44 I’m not deaf, only sick.” 

44 Sick, eh?” said he, his shrewd blue eyes look¬ 
ing through and through her. 

When he had rapped and tapped his fill, he 
turned on Mira. 

44 Nowq woman,” he began, 44 are you really so 
ignorant that you didn’t know you shouldn’t take 
this Annie of yours out in such weather? You’ve 
had other children, no? They’ve been sick, no? 


THE LOVE CHILD 


55 


. . . Typhoid/ ’ he added, in an undertone to 

the nurse in attendance. 

After that a buzzing in Annie’s head made 
each word the doctor said sound as if it were 
dropping into a tin pail. “Go home. Put her 
to bed. We’ll send a doctor.” 

“Oh, I do feel so sick,” thought Annie, feel¬ 
ing her strength ebbing away through her very 
finger-tips. 

Mira, reduced to dumbness, took her daughter’s 
hand. Together they stumbled to the door where 
they met Leba Brody and his small son coming in. 

“Nu?” he asked eagerly, “what fails her?” 

Mira’s eyes clouded over. “Fails?” She 
shrugged hopelessly. ‘ ‘ Fails her enough. She is 
provided for, what are you thinking?” 

Leba Brody’s heart beat with sympathy. “Poor 
woman,” he thought. 

“NINETEEN, NINETEEN! For goodness 
sake get out! Get in! ” barked the official. 

XIII 

11 Can you walk to the car ? ’ ’ asked the troubled 
Mira. But in the same moment she lifted the un¬ 
willing Annie in her arms. 

“Next block is the car,” she said, and indeed, 
a car in sight, Mira broke into a choppy run. 

What relief thev both felt to be seated in the 

%> 

car, to be going home! The three chairs by the 


56 


TEE LOVE CHILD 


window loomed up as a haven of rest in Annie’s 
dazed, aching mind. She longed for them, and 
felt as if she had been away from home an eter¬ 
nity. She glanced up at her mother. An obscure 
unhappiness shot through her heart, for Mira’s 
lips were set with worry, her face broken out in 
patches of red as always when she was excited. 

“I screamed terribly at her—what made me 
scream like that?” But Annie was too tired, 
too full of aches, too weary for self-torture. Once 
again her chair-bed loomed up as a haven of 
rest. She jumped ahead mentally to the moment 
when she could sink down upon it. She breathed 
a warm, delicious peace, closed her eyes, relaxed. 
The rumble of the car in motion grew fainter. 
She was drifting away into space and into dreams 
that seemed real. . . . She dreamed she was 

very hot, for it was one of those scorching days 
when women all sit around on the street idly, and 
gossip. . . . 

Suddenly their idleness switches off into hustle 
and bustle, for it is Friday afternoon, the Sab¬ 
bath hanging close overhead. ... A woman 
flies into the house to borrow a saucepan, another 
to borrow a pinch of salt, another to let your 
mother taste of a savory dish. ... At last 
mama’s work is done. . . . She has finished 

ordering you around and sends you off: to But- 
gers Street dock for your weekly free plunge. . 
. . Ssh! She forgot something! . . . You 


THE LOVE CHILD 


57 


must take the cliulnt (stew) to the baker’s in 
whose oven it bakes brown and much better than 
in the broken stove at home. . . . Well, you 

are on your way, with the pot in your hands, 
walking cautiously lest you trip and spill the 
stew. . . . You hate the baker’s cellar; it is 

smelly and mouldy, the bakers themselves stand 
around half naked and look at you with smiles 
that somehow embarrass you. Sometimes they 
snicker, dig each other in the ribs. You are re¬ 
lieved when you have the nickel paid for the ser¬ 
vice and are once more out on the street. But 
the sour smell of sweat, the bakers’ smell, fol¬ 
lows you out. . . . Nina and Libbie are on 

the street waiting for you. Thank goodness. . 
. . You’ll go to the Rutgers Street dock now, 

at once, for you are dying to get into the cool 
water. Whiat luck that mama discovered such a 
place! . . . You are there. How wonderful 

to get out of all your clothes, to have nothing 
standing between your hot body and the slight 
breeze of this stifling hot day! . . . Now for 

the pool! . . . Down the slippery stairs you 

go. The water looks dark, muddy. Maybe it can 
make you sick? What difference? In you go. . . . 

A chill awoke Annie. She opened her eyes 
and stared unknowingly. Then wide awake, she 
wailed, “Is it Division Street yet?” Oh, how 
she ached! 

“Yes,” answered Mira, to whom the clatter of 


58 


THE LOVE CHILD 


the elevated was a welcome sound. She peered 
anxiously out of the car window for a sight of 

little Nina. There was to be not a moment’s de- 

< 

lay on account of the child’s unwillingness to 
follow upstairs. And as she stepped off the car, 
she still peered. 

A black throng of people. They seemed to be 
gathered right in front of their very own house. 
A fire? Somebody run over? 

Voices shouting each other down. 

Mira’s brows gathered as her small blue eyes 
went on the half block ahead of her to investi¬ 
gate. Someone lifted something—a scarlet flash. 
Mira stood a moment, dazed with unreality. She 
took a few steps with a strange, dragging hesita¬ 
tion, and, ‘ ‘ Oh, woe is me! ’ ’ escaped her. Annie, 
startled, raised heavy eyes. A limp scarlet little 
bundle! A knife drove into her entrails. Her 
knees knocked and she tried to stiffen them. 

The crowd surged forward. 

“She was ranned over,” cried somebody. 

And the rest, getting the clue, reiterated des¬ 
pairingly, “She was ranned over.” 

An unearthly shriek left Annie’s breast as 
Mira, fainting, fell to the ground. 

“Nina!” 

XIV 

One stood in better with Feifa Teitelbaum, the 
boss of the men’s coat shop in which Yekel 


THE LOVE CHILD 


59 


worked as a bastings puller, if one lingered a 
little after hours to do this trifle or that, giving 
the appearance of devotion to one’s work. Al¬ 
though Yekel had more reason to cringe in this 
way than any of the other workers, with his 
handicap of drunkenness, he did so less than any¬ 
one else. This day, however, he had been so 
keenly aware of Feifa Teitelbaum’s disapprov¬ 
ing glances that he felt the very safety of his 
job depended upon his redeeming himself in this 
way, and he quite made up his mind that he 
would. But when the six o’clock dismissal gong 
struck he was seized with such an urge to get 
home and find out how Annie was that he dropped 
his work and without the least attempt to conceal 
his eagerness, left the shop. 

He walked fast through the dingy East Side 
streets, feeling peculiarly excited, peering ahead 
as if he expected at any moment to catch a 
glimpse of Annie. His excitement mounted stead¬ 
ily. He had no control over himself. At last 
he turned the corner into Division Street. His 
eyes fell upon a group of people gathered near 
the tenement. They seemed intensely absorbed 
in each other. Somehow, Yekel resented this; he 
■wanted to make his way into the house unob¬ 
served, hastily. He had always wanted to do this, 
sober or drunk, for he knew that through Mira 
all the neighbors knew all about him. As if to 
give them time to disperse, he slackened his pace. 


60 


THE LOVE CHILD 


But they kept on standing there and jabbering. 
Yekel, drawing closer, lowered his eyes. Involun¬ 
tarily, he raised them again and at once observed 
that the group had transferred its attention to 
him. He frowned darkly. He dropped his eyes 
again and then once more glanced up involun¬ 
tarily. He caught sight of the news-carrying ex¬ 
pression of one of the women’s faces. Something 
snapped in Yekel’s soul. He stopped short. His 
mouth automatically opened and shut upon si¬ 
lence. As in a fog he saw women raise the cor¬ 
ners of shawls to their eyes, sway from side to 
side in rhythm to their lamentations, “Oigh wei, 
wei!” Yekel dragged his feet forward; a half 
deadness w r as upon him. The next moment, utter 
oblivion came over him; he stood unseeing, un¬ 
knowing. And then there followed sharp, swift 
intuition: “Is—she—dead?” . . . 

i i Oigh w r ei, wei! ’ ’ 

XV 

There is nothing Ghetto neighbors take so read¬ 
ily upon themselves as the sharing of another’s 
grief. Yekel opened the door upon a room full 
of men, women and children, all of w T hom were 
echoing poor Mira’s wails and lamentations. 

Death! It shouted out at Yekel from every 
corner. There, in the middle of the room, on the 
floor—a small figure covered with black—“God 
Almighty!” 



THE LOVE CHILD 


61 


Yekel stood stark, dazed beyond all sense of 
reality. Then a terrible feeling of anguish tore 
through him. “Annie, dead!” he cried under his 
breath, “My God!” The soul of him seemed to 
collapse. He shielded his eyes with one hand, as 
if to shut out the truth. Immediately then he 
recovered himself. Where was Mira?—she who 
had tampered with Annie. What had Mira done 
while he was away? Enmity ravaged his heart. 
He staggered farther into the room, lurching 
against the table. “You,” he cried thickly at 
Mira, holding up a shaking hand, warningly, 
“—did—did you take her to the doctor?” 

“Nu, he is drunk at that,” whispered a neigh¬ 
bor in a leaden tone, and, moving to one side, left 
free to view the chair-bed by the window upon 
which Yekel only vaguely perceived a figure. 

He continued to address his wife, “I asked 
you a civil question, I want an answer!” he 
thundered in a strange tone. 

Mira, prostrated, was unable to understand 
him ; she stared up at him vacantly. 

Yekel went white to the lips. He lurched for¬ 
ward. “I’ll—I’ll have your answer—” he stood 
over Mira like a madman, tense with his madness. 

And it was only then that Annie, dazed with 
fever, noticed his presence. She sat bolt upright. 

“Papa! Oh papa!” she cried out to him, 
“Nina—little Nina—They’ve killed her. Papa— 
Oh. . .”Her grief was terrible. 



62 


THE LOVE CHILD 


Yekel stood a moment as if he could not 
believe he had heard her voice. His face was 
like wood. Then a mighty twitch distorted his 
features. He made several reeling lurches for¬ 
ward and sank upon his knees before the chair- 
bed. 

‘ ‘My—my love child!” Yekelmoanedimpotently, 
burying his head in the crook of his arm. The soul 
of him leaped to a day in the past—a day wild 
with snow and wind, the day when drunkenness 
came upon him for the first time. And then Annie 
and one Regina became hopelessly entangled in 
his mind, and a wild unreasoning love tore at 
him. 

“She lives!” he moaned. “She lives—Regina 
—Annie—my love child!” 


i 




BOOK TWO 


XVI 

F ROM his earliest childhood Yekel had pre¬ 
ferred being alone, nor could anyone break 
him of the habit. And he had always been given 
to silence. Once when he was six years old he 
disappeared from home for a full day and night. 
No amount of coaxing could induce him to tell 
where he had been or what he had done. 

A beating brought about his confession. He 
had climbed to the top of the mountain to find the 
man who ‘ i pushed out the dark and let in the 
light.’’ He was disappointed enough at failing 
to make the discovery. 

The beating he received threw him into a state 
of melancholy. He would not play. He would 
not eat. He sat aimlessly about, peering at the 
sky, wondering and brooding, feeling cheated and 
thwarted. 

Life had held little but misery for him until 
one day shortly afterwards he discovered that a 
rubber band when stretched and manipulated with 
a finger gave out music. He was fascinated. He 

would sit, all hunched up, running a finger quickly, 

63 


64 


THE LOVE CHILD 


then slowly over the rubber band, then very, very 
slowly. Where did the sound come from! He 
could not find out. He grew disgusted at last and 
threw the rubber band away. The very sight of 
a rubber band thereafter was abhorrent to him 
for it seemed to have a mercilessness about it. 

Four years more brought him to religious 
doubts. In the village lived a simpleton, Berel by 
name. It did not seem possible to Yekel that God 
could have taken the trouble to create this crea¬ 
ture at whom everybody jeered. Berel whined and 
sniveled, and showed the fear of a baby when 
you struck a match in his grown-up presence. 
Now, why should God have made him? Not God 
but Chance made Berel, so Yekel concluded. 
Concluding thus, Yekel saw Chance behind the 
whole order of the universe. Through Chance 
he was Yekel and not Berel, and the whole world 
was what it was. As for God: man had created 
Him. Yes, man had created God and not God man. 
There was no God at all. One day Yekel walked 
up to the rabbi of the Chedar (religious school) 
and handed him his Bible. “I am through,” he 
said with dignity, and walked away. Nobody 
after that could persuade him to attend Chedar 
again. 

Little by little sex consciousness stole upon 
Yekel. When he was less than eleven years old 
he could contain his curiosity no longer. He went 


THE LOVE CHILD 


65 


to his mother and asked her pointblank: i ‘ Where 
do babies come from?” 

The horrified woman slapped him full over the 
mouth. ‘ i Sinner! ’ 9 she shouted, and ran and told 
her husband. 

The stricken parents prayed to God for guid¬ 
ance. God sent them divine advice: Yekel should 
be married. Though they decided to do this, at 
thirteen Yekel was not yet married, partly be¬ 
cause his parents had not found a suitable bride, 
and partly because he had never repeated his 
offence. Yekel had gone with the burning question 
to the deserted rabbi, and had received a full 
answer. 

With a knowledge of sex, a sense of silent awe 
became Yekel’s. All of womankind took on a 
new meaning for him. From pretty girls he felt 
infinitely remote, as if they were creatures of 
some legend or myth. His mother seemed a 
different, a more important person from w T hat he 
had ever thought her. And as for his sister, 
Mollie, an unfathomable mystery seemed sud¬ 
denly to surround her. Her quiet manner, her 
soft voice would make his heart jump. Once he 
surreptitiously watched her undress. The beauty 
of her fascinated him; he could scarcely contain 
himself against a desire to run out and touch her 
white skin. After that he carried about an 
immense respect for her, and treated her with 
extreme courtesy. 


66 


THE LOVE CHILD 


It was when he was fourteen years old that he 
fell in love with Regina, the gentile girl serving 
in his uncle’s barroom. 

Regina was beautiful. She had light brown 
curls, and deep blue eyes. Though a girl of only 
sixteen years, she was well versed in the wisdom 
of women. She was not long in discerning her 
attraction for Yekel. It inspired her to cut special 
capers in his presence. In a way that hypnotized 
Yekel, Regina would cock her head sidewise, hold 
her arms akimbo, throwing one elbow forward 
and the other back, and, expanding her mature 
breast, would emit a rippling, musical chuckle. 
At other times she would cock her head forward 
and peer at him as if in anger, abruptly saunter¬ 
ing off to the bar, from where she would throw 
him a bewitching smile, or a contradictory wink. 
Yekel watched her drift from one attitude into 
another as if she were a play of light, a trick of 
fantasy, as if at any moment the reality of her 
would vanish. His uncle soon sensed Yekel’s in¬ 
fatuation, and went to Yekel’s parents in great 
alarm. They, in turn, seized with panic, could 
not forgive themselves their dilatoriness. At once 
they found Mira, with a good dowry and rabbinical 
ancestry to recommend her, as a bride for Yekel. 
But she was red-headed and not particularly good 
looking, and it was rumored of her that she had 
the temper that proverbially accompanies red 
hair. But then it was no longer a question of 


THE LOVE CHILD 


67 


choice; the boy had to he saved from the 
“shicksa” (gentile girl). 

When Yekel learned that he was to be married, 
he went through a whirlwind of emotions. He 
was dazed at first, then, with a clearer realization, 
he fell even more passionately in love with 
Regina. In a rage against his own defenseless¬ 
ness he grew angry at his parents, at his uncle, 
even at his innocent sister, each in turn, and then 
at all of them together, and he had moments when 
he felt he could find relief only in violence. The 
conflict raging in his soul made him stare at 
people in queer, sightless fashion, as if he were 
looking up for help. Then once, for an instant, 
curiosity flitted into him. Who was this Mira? 
Thoughts darted hither and thither in his mind 
like flies under a ceiling. Mere boy though he 
was and without real understanding, desire began 
to run about in his blood. Under the spell, he once 
asked his mother what his bride looked like. “Ah 
ha!” they cried, “ er intressert zich shonl 9 (He 
is becoming interested!) They smiled gratifi¬ 
cation, but all that Yekel learned was that his 
bride was a rabbi’s daughter. 

As the wedding day drew near, Yekel even 
grew glad, and yet Regina lay like a mist of 
sadness upon his boy heart. His gladness pulled 
him one way and his sadness another way. He 
felt storm-tossed and tearful, drawn to something, 
somewhere, through a great labyrinth. 


68 


THE LOVE CHILD 


And thus Yekel was married to Mira without 
his ever even having seen her. 

XVII 

Years after his marriage came the event 
which marked the beginning of Yekel’s downfall, 
brought him and Mira and their four children to 
America, and gave Mira to know that she was 
married to a phantom, a ghost, the real substance 
of whom loved and belonged to Regina, the bar¬ 
maid. 

The day had opened clear, but late in the morn¬ 
ing clouds rose and by noon a wild storm had 
burst. It rained and hailed and snowed; heaven 
and earth seemed to tumble about each other, 
each as if fighting desperately for supremacy. 

Of all days Yekel had chosen this one to go to 
Kretinga, a neighboring town, to buy stock for the 
store. Mira had foretold the storm; she had 
warned him not to go. He had not listened. It 
seemed to him as if her voice sounded in the 
wind that blew. As if to escape her voice, he 
decided to seek shelter in an inn. No wind could 
blow there. When the storm lifted, he would 
proceed farther. . . . He looked up and be¬ 
held a sign, “The Regina Inn.” His breath left 
him for a swift second. But it was with no ex¬ 
pectation of discovering his former love that he 
walked slowly up the too straight and narrow 


TEE LOVE CHILD 69 

flight of wooden steps and opened the door of the 
inn. 

In the farther end of the large, bare room, 
before an open fireplace whence came the crack¬ 
ling sound of burning wood, stood a beautiful 
woman’s figure. When the door opened, she 
turned her head. ... A little older she was 
—and, oh, more beautiful, more beautiful. 

“Regina!” Yekel called, as to a vision, 
‘ 4 Regina! ’’ 

Her blue eyes opened wide. Her lips parted 
like two red rose petals. She took a few hesi¬ 
tating steps forward. She threw one hand up 
before her eyes. . . . The other hand auto¬ 
matically flew to her breast. 

“You!” she cried, “Oh-” 

And they fell into each other’s arms. 

Time passed. 

They sat talking. 

“So you loved me though you married her? 
Well, it’s a strong man you were to let religion 
stand in your way, when you say you don’t care 
for it. I do care—I go to church—I believe in 
Jesus Christ—but so help me God I loved you 

so-” Regina looked around, frightened at 

the sound of her own voice. “Drink another 
glass,” she whispered, once more looking cau¬ 
tiously about, then bending forward toward Yekel. 
And as he finished drinking the whiskey she held 
up to his lips, she flung herself upon his breast. 




70 


THE LOVE CHILD 


Yekel stroked her brown curls; his heart and 
soul wept, and he felt so at peace. Holding her 
close, kissing her over and over again, he mur¬ 
mured passionately, “Regina—lovely Regina, I 
love you—I loved you—I love you. She’s —she’s 
a stranger—a terrible stranger—I never reach 
anything in her. A man is not satisfied with just 
any woman. I deny it. It’s you, Regina—love. 
Love is the only stopping place in life; without it 
the heart, the soul wanders, gets nowhere, is never 
satisfied, Regina. Oh, lovely Regina.” And 
Yekel ran his trembling, drunken hand up and 
down Regina’s shapely arm, up and down, up and 
down. . . . 

“It’s true,” cried Regina, straining him to her 
breast. . . . 

‘ ‘ God damn! ” A hoarse voice broke upon them. 

Yekel looked up. 

Regina’s husband, big brute of a man, stood 
in the doorway ... A rush ... a heavy 
blow on the head ... a fierce hand at the 
throat . . . Yekel is outdoors wdiere heaven 

and earth in terrible conflict are whirling a cold 
white sheet through the air, that envelopes, blinds 
him. It is freezing, stinging cold, and the mind 
is so muddled, so confused with the wind and the 
cold and the snow that Yekel has no idea 
where a man must go to escape it. He rubs his 
hands and then slaps them over his smarting ears 
as he blunders dazedly on. 



THE LOVE CHILD 


71 


That crunching sound beneath the feet, it makes 
him think of potato-pudding crust between the 
teeth. Strange . . . The pudding crust is 

always so hot you have to roll it around in your 
mouth before you can close your jaws on it. This 
beneath the feet is so cold! . . . Potato¬ 
pudding crust. Mira. The children. Home. 
Oh, home! That is where a man must go to es¬ 
cape this insanity of the weather. Yekel’s heart 
stands still. . . . And Regina? No more 
Regina? A great beyond with only Mira! A 
great empty beyond! A terrible desolation comes 
over him that tears at his heart, at his throat, 
chokes him, chokes him . . . One must shriek 

for help. . . . 

A man is there at his elbow, come to his 
rescue. . . . 

It is dark, terribly cold, and the wagon bumps so. 

Only Mira is at home. The children, she says 
to the man who has brought Yekel home, were 
caught in the storm and are with their grand¬ 
mother, where they will spend the night. And 
how worried she has been about her husband! 
Her heart had told her something had gone wrong 
with him. . . . But what is that? He stinks 

of whiskey! Where could he have been? 

The rescuer laughs and is off. 

Alone with Mira. She taunts, “This only you 
needed to make you all good . . . Drink! 

And that is what kept you so long ? . . . ’ ’ 


72 


THE LOVE CHILD 


Those tiny, incisive blue eyes! 

‘‘If—if I’m so imperfect—if—if I suit you so 
little—why don’t you let—let me go?” 

“And your band of children? ... I would 
let you go to the black years. . .” 

Children. Babies. Regina. Mira. Women. 

Yekel’s eyes travel over Mira’s flat body. 

A scorching flame leaps up in him. A blur 
comes before his eyes. Unsteadily he rises from 
his seat. As in a mist Mira does the same, and 
turns pale. He shuffles forward; she shifts 
backward. Finally he has her pressed close 
against the wall, and magically for a moment she 
becomes Regina, warm and soft and lovely. 

A wind howls outside. Let her scream! She 
will not be heard . . . She shrieks in his face, 

‘ 1 Drunkard! ’ ’ 

Yekel laughs, rubs his face against hers, snaps 
a finger now against one of her cheeks, now 
against the other. 

“Drunkard! Drunkard! Drunkard!” 

He lifts her up in his arms. He crushes her. 
He stifles her . . . He carries her into an 

inner room, stammering, “My Regina! My 
Regina! ’ ’ 

•Ur 

Tv *7P W TV* 

Then came a day when he lay hunched up on 
a haystack, the hot sun beating down. From a 
cottage some distance away, the shrieks of Mira 
in child-labor pierced his mind, dull with drink. 


THE LOVE CHILD 


73 


During intervals of quiet he sat up, chewing his 
fingernails, and now and then wiping his per¬ 
spiring face with a large bandanna handkerchief. 
For all his efforts he could not recall how many 
times he had been drunk in the nine months since 
the night of the storm at Kretinga. A piercing 
shriek always broke off his calculations. 

The harsh voice of his mother-in-law, close to 
his ear roused him. 

“A father! Such a father! Drunk he is on the 
day of his child ’s birth. A girl as beautiful as 
the sun, with eyes blue as the heavens, and she 
even has brown hair ... A father! A drunk¬ 
ard! A disgrace! A rabbi’s son-in-law should 
be a drunkard! Out of this town you will go, 
you good-for-nothing, and not a trace of you to 
be left! Go to America where all the apostates 
live and where you belong.’’ 

His own mother laid a gentle hand on his head. 

“It’s a girl,” she said softly, with tears. She 
helped him rise. Then she broke down with 
weeping. “My son, my son,” she mourned. The 
sound of her weeping tore at Yekel’s dulled soul. 
He clutched at his breast and strove to speak. 
His mind cleared a little. 

“Mama—It’s—I,” he stammered, and fell 
back into a stupor. 

Suddenly Regina with arms akimbo, one elbow 
forward and the other back came before Yekel’s 
eyes. He raised a troubled countenance to his 


74 


THE LOVE CHILD 


grief-stricken mother. 44 Did you say she has 
blue eyes and brown hair?” His voice trembled 
as if shaken by the wind. 44 Blue eyes? Brown 
hair?” he repeated. And when his mother an¬ 
swered, “Yes” he reiterated to himself in an 
awed voice, “Blue eyes! Brown hair!” . . . 

Before his inner vision persisted Regina, beauti¬ 
ful, irresistible. 

4 4 Such eyes! Such hair! ’ ’ clanged the mother- 
in-law’s voice, strangely like Mira’s. 44 Fui! 
Out of this town, you apostate, you drunkard, 
you’ll go! Away, away to America, where such 
as you belong.” 

Listening to the abuse, Yekel’s soul paused. 
The very atmosphere seemed to pause, the wind 
abruptly ceased to blow. Even the mother-in-law 
was impelled to silence. It was as if the thought 
gripping Yekel emanated a paralyzing force . . . 
Yekel swallowed hard. His frame seemed to 
stiffen, to become rigid, and then, quick as a flash, 
to droop, then fall to pieces. He put his hand 
before his mouth to stifle a sob. 44 She—she’s 
my love child!” he thought, while a sudden light 
flooded the horizon. 

The wind began to blow again. 

The two women helped him rise and led him 
home. 

Thus passed the event that brought about 
Yekel’s downfall, the event that drove him and 
Mira and their four children to America. 



THE LOVE CHILD 


75 


XVIII 

The day of Nina’s funeral, while a neighbor 
worked about the house putting it in order for 
the returning mourners, Annie lay with closed 
eyes on the chair-bed. She was sick—sick in 
body and soul. She tried to realize that little 
Nina was dead. Nina never would talk again, 
laugh again, play again! Gone forever? “It 
can’t be,” she moaned. “It can’t be so.” There 
was an unmerciful void in her heart, and her 
body ached so. Presently she remembered the 
dispensary doctor, who had called late the pre¬ 
vious night. “Can you die of typhoid fever?” 
she wondered. She tried to picture herself dead, 
but that was as impossible as it was to believe 
that Nina, dear little Nina, was gone forever. 
. . . She began to feel restless. Her head 

ached; she wanted to cry but she was too ex¬ 
hausted to do so. She buried her head in the 
pillow; her father appeared bringing Nina in by 
the hand. She heard him say, with a smile of 
delight, that it had all been a mistake, that Nina 
was alive and well, and that she. wanted to play, 
“My mother said-” 

The neighbor noisily put a chair to one side. 

Annie raised her eyes. A sharp realization of 
the blank truth of things struck her like a great 
blow in the face. Terror assailed her. She 
would have screamed, if a rap had not sounded 
on the door. 



76 


THE LOVE CHILD 


XIX 

The neighbor opened the door upon the breezy 
figure of the dispensary doctor, whose blue eyes 
smiled. 

Doctor Ellis ’ smile flickered out abruptly. 

41 Why, what’s the matter, little girl?” he called 
to Annie from the door, genuinely touched by 
the misery written upon her young face. In his 
long contact with the poor, George Ellis had 
become inured to the sight of tragedy, but there 
was something about the tragedy he had come 
upon in this home the night before that had 
touched a sympathetic chord within him. Besides, 
Annie promised to be an interesting “case.” 

He smiled again as he sat down on the edge 
of Annie’s chair-bed. He flipped her under the 
chin, to rouse her from her depression. But 
Annie jerked her head away and fell to sobbing 
bitterly. 

Doctor Ellis did not know what to say; he 
could not strike a note of cheer; something in 
Annie’s sobbing forbade it. He felt her pulse. 
Presently he bent over her. 

“Don’t cry,” he said gently, “it doesn’t do 
any good.” 

Out in the hall dragging footsteps sounded. 
This time the neighbor opened the door upon 
the desolate figures of Mira, Yekel, Gussie and 
Libbie back from the burial. 


THE LOVE CHILD 


77 


At sight of Doctor Ellis, Mira wrung her hands. 
“Doctor, Doctor,” she moaned, “such a sorrow! 
Such a sorrow. Oh, help our Annie that she may 
get well, help her. It is too much to bear.’’ 

Doctor Ellis beckoned her and Yekel to follow 
him into the bedroom. 

“She has not high fever just now,” he said, 
“and I think she will be all right if you give her 
these powders one at a time regularly every half 
hour.” 

Mira resumed her weeping and lamentations, 
touching Yekel to the quick. His eyes cast down, 
he put one hand on her arm and stroked it gently. 
With the other hand, he took the medicine from 
Doctor Ellis and in a choked voice promised to 
administer it according to instructions. 

Automatically the three turned back. 

In the room-of-all-af£airs, Mira sank down 
upon the wooden box that the neighbor had pro¬ 
vided for the customary shiva. Mechanically 
Yekel drew the box meant for him up to Annie’s 
chair-bed and also sat down. As he glanced from 
Annie to Mira, a terrible contrition for his defi¬ 
ciency as a husband held Yekel a moment. The 
next moment he was thinking of Annie, with a love 
that w T as desperate, overwhelming. He heaved a 
sigh and dropped his head into the palms of his 
hands. 

Mira, seeing his grief, began her lamentations 
all over again. 


78 


THE LOVE CHILD 


1 ‘My child, my crown, my little Nina, my heart! 
Dead. Dead. Oh, my poor mother-heart. ,, 

With a great effort Yekel rose and went over 
to her. i ‘Try to be brave,” he said. Very softly 
he added, “Poor Mira,” as Doctor Ellis called 
out, “There, there. Nu, ja, aber , doch das 
dilrfst du nicht,” and he proceeded to tell Mira 
what reasons for gratitude were left her. 

Mira grew silent, and Yekel irritated by Doctor 
Ellis, went hack to his place on the box. 

“Good-by now,” called out Doctor Ellis cheer¬ 
ily, “I will be here again to-morrow. And no 
more crying, neither from you, mother, nor you, 
Miss Annie. Don’t let them.” This last to Yekel 
who, against his will, looked away annoyed, and 
thought: 

“I will take care of my child myself.” 

And as Yekel sat and watched beside Annie 
through the night, he uttered a prayer in his 
heart, uttered it time and again: “God grant it 
may be nothing serious.” His soul sought a 
compact with God. He made a promise: “I will 
keep sober. I will keep sober . 9 9 

XX 

The next day Annie was worse, and by noon 
she w r as delirious. 

Then followed long days during which the fever 
ran its course. 

A strange calm was upon Yekel. Tormented 


THE LOVE CHILD 


79 


in sonl by the sight of Annie’s suffering, he was 
nevertheless calm, as if he knew that his compact 
with God assured her final recovery. 

All through the long days while he sat a pris¬ 
oner in Feifa Teitelbaum’s shop, Yekel had but 
one thought: Annie must recover. And for the 
nights, he had but one plan: to sit by her bedside 
and tend her. He seemed to have no need for 
rest. Night after night he kept vigil. He watched 
her every move. He ministered to her so pains¬ 
takingly, so tenderly that, sick as Annie was, she 
was puzzled by him, and also grateful to him. 
It felt so good to have his devotion. In her pain, 
she would call plaintively: 

“Papa. Oh, papa.” 

Yekel would grope clumsily for her hand and 
sit stroking it, unable to speak. At moments, 
despite himself, misgiving would assail him. As 
if by penitence to win the favor of the fates, he 
would make promises in his heart: The future 
would not be like the past. He would never be the 
same man that he had been. This suffering had 
been sent him that he might learn to be a better 
man. Henceforth he was done with whiskey, and 
his inarticulateness, and his disinterestedness 
in his family. God would see—he, Yekel, would 
keep all his promises! 


XXI 

Doctor Ellis, who had to exercise his sharpest 



THE LOVE CHILD 


80 

ingenuity to save Annie, was tremendously grati¬ 
fied when she began to show signs of improvement. 
As he sometimes caught her brooding about Nina, 
and feared its retarding effect, he took pains to 
cheer her up. He would prolong his visits, and 
sit and talk to her: 

‘ 4 What class did you say you are in at school ?” 

i 1 Graduating.’ ’ 

“My, we’re smart!” He would flip her under 
the chin, while he observed whether her eyes were 
clear as they should be. What did she plan to 
do after she was graduated from public school? 

“I’m going to college.” 

“To college, eh? And what to learn, pretty 
maiden?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“Don’t know?” 

“No.” 

“ Don’t know.” 

She would smile. He would laugh. 

Whenever he could think of something face¬ 
tious to say, Doctor Ellis would say it. “Tell me, 
pretty nut-brown lassie, have you ever wondered 
why a watermelon is red?” 

Annie had not wondered about this; she shook 
her head negatively. 

“Why?” she asked, lifting shy, smiling eyes. 

“Niggers love it, and red looks well against 
black. ’ ’ 

But better than anything, Annie liked to have 


THE LOVE CHILD 


81 


him read stories to her. One fairy tale particu¬ 
larly impressed her. It was a tale about a sweet, 
patient girl, abused by a stepmother, who was 
at last rescued by a charming prince. Subcon¬ 
sciously Annie identified herself with the heroine 
and Doctor Ellis with the prince. She showed 
so much enthusiasm over this story, that Doctor 
Ellis laughed about it. 

Annie loved to hear Doctor Ellis laugh. It 
sounded like music to her. Often when she didn’t 
see any reason for laughing, she laughed just 
because he did. She loved him; with each of his 
visits she loved him more. He was wonderful 
in every way. He was so handsome, tall and 
straight. He breathed a freshness and a cleanli¬ 
ness. His clothes always looked as if they had 
just then come from under the tailor’s iron. He 
seemed to be of a world of which one dared only 
to dream, of a world as different from Division 
Street and tenements, as a fairy-land is different 
from a pigsty. 

Of course Doctor Ellis loved her, thought 
Annie. It made her very happy. 

The knowledge of his love, verified by all his 
conduct, his long visits, his little gifts, and his 
confidences about his personal affairs, lifted 
Annie out of her own, and linked her with Doctor 
Ellis’ environment; it gave her a sense of remote¬ 
ness from the family, her father included. She 
quite forgot how she had clung to Yekel all 


82 


THE LOVE CHILD 


through the critical period of her illness. Doctor 
Ellis seemed somehow to cancel all that. 

And Doctor Ellis was delighted that his friend¬ 
ship was having such a good effect. Nor was he 
conscious of making any sacrifice; Annie Cohen 
was a very pretty little girl and Doctor Ellis 
was alert to feminine attractiveness even when 
it was only fourteen years old. 

XXII 

Annie’s devotion to Doctor Ellis had a strange 
effect upon Yekel. He was jealous; he felt 
cheated, and resentful. The distaste he had con¬ 
ceived for Doctor Ellis from the first, turned 
into a violent dislike. And toward Annie he felt 
hitter. It was as if she had coquetted with him. 
He would watch them both out of disapproving 
eyes, his heart fluttering like a jealous lover’s. He 
had at all times to exert control over himself 
not to speak out. When he feared that he could 
not restrain himself, he would clump away to the 
parlor and there, always in the dark, he w 7 ould 
sit and play his violin. Sad, melancholy tunes 
he played, that stirred a curious disharmony in 
Annie’s soul as she listened to Doctor Ellis’ 
cheery speech rising against their sombre back¬ 
ground. 

They puzzled Annie, these tunes, made her 
restless. She was often tempted to cry out to 


THE LOVE CHILD 83 

her father to stop playing, but something would 
not let her. 

XXIII 

Yekel had made a compact with God; he had 
promised to be a different, a better man. Now 
he ridiculed himself for it. What had he to do 
with God? Suffering had made him spiritually 
lame and he had taken God for a crutch. He 
smiled contemptuously inside. 

One day sitting over his monotonous shop 
work, Yekel resolved to have done with his re¬ 
formed self. 

As the day wore on, his resolution grew more 
intense, until he tingled with it, and with a sense 
of liberation. 

But when the day was ended and he found 
himself free to go to the saloon, an odd hesitation 
seized him. It was as if he would call the wrath 
of the fates down upon Annie by yielding to his 
desire. Something within him mocked his fear, 
called it ridiculous superstition. But still Yekel 
wavered. While he debated with himself, he 
hastened homeward. All of a sudden he was 
caught by a conviction that for his very thought 
of drink, Annie would suffer. Horror assailed 
him. He saw Annie sick again, and this time he 
was powerless to nurse her back to life. 

He walked so fast he lost his breath. 

Reaching the tenement, he hurried up the 




84 


THE LOVE CHILD 

/ 

rickety stairs, fearful and eager to get to the 
sick-room and learn the truth. 

XXIV 

“When do you think I can get up?” Annie 
asked Doctor Ellis. 

The doctor’s blue eyes twinkled. He could tell 
by Annie’s impending tears that the oft expressed 
desire to get up was turning into impatience. 

“Oh,” he drawled, “well, now, let’s see. This 
is Tuesday? Been in bed four months? Well, 
one more minute and we can get up.” 

“Ah, now, I’m not fooling,” cried Annie, “I’m 
tired of lying in bed.” 

“And I’m tired of walking. As a rule, man’s 
a fool; when it’s hot, he wants it cool; when it’s 
cool, he wants it hot; always wanting what is 
not.” 

Annie had never heard the rhyme before. She 
burst out into merry laughter and hugged Doctor 
Ellis’ arm. 

It was upon this scene that Yekel opened the 
door—Yekel tortured with anxiety about his love 
child, whom he imagined ill, dead perhaps, cursed 
for his sin! 

Standing in the doorway a brief moment he 
looked like a hulk of dirty flesh, turned into stone. 

A feeling of revulsion swept over Annie, fol¬ 
lowed by alarm, for she caught a threatening 


THE LOVE CHILD 


85 


expression on her father ’s face. The next moment 
she was hearing indistinctly a low angry voice: 

“Say yung feller-” The rest was shut out 

from her because of a buzzing in her ears. 

The darkness of Yekel’s eyes seemed to oblit¬ 
erate all the light of the room. She could not see 
distinctly. Was her father’s chest heaving? 
Did Doctor Ellis look indignant? Was he putting 
on his hat to leave? 

Mira’s voice sounded in the hall and arrested 
the attention of all three. “Never you mind, 
Gussie,” she was saying, “your mother is no fool. 
When she says it’s better once to be married 
than twice to be an old maid, you can believe 
it’s true.” 

Yekel emitted a short, sharp laugh, turned ab¬ 
ruptly, and clumped away to the parlor. 

Then Doctor Ellis called out “Good-by” to her 
and “Hello” to Gussie and mama who opened 
the door. 

The next moment the room was empty of 
Doctor Ellis and full of mama’s voice: “No child 
should disobey a parent. A parent knows what’s 
best for a child. Every girl should marry. If a 
girl can’t, through some ill luck, get her own man, 
there are match-makers. Nicer girls than you have 
let their mothers engage match-makers. You ought 
to be glad you have a mother who is interested 
enough in you to want to marry you off. You 
would be a beautiful sight as an old maid; 



86 


THE LOVE CHILD 


wrinkled, sallow, with a gray braid of hair. I 
have had plenty of sorrow; you might feel sorry 
enough for me, if you were a good daughter, to 
want to give me a little joy. Nothing would give 
me more joy than to see you safely married. 
You are of age—plenty old enough—it won’t be 
long now before you will be on the down grade. A 
girl fades soon enough when she works in a shop 
and hasn’t too good a life otherwise. Take my 
advise. I am no fool.” Then abruptly: “My 
God, what are we to do about the twenty-five 
dollar debt we got into on account of Annie’s 
sickness!” Mira’s thoughts had a way of sweep¬ 
ing one right into the other. 

A brooding silence followed her question. 

At last, from Gussie, in her soft phlegmatic 
voice: “It’s the busy season in the shop. I’ll 
bring home night work. We can make a little 
extra money that way.” 

An empty pot fell from Mira’s hand with a 
clang. “ Oigh, gewalt!” she cried, stooping to pick 
up the pot, “A brilliant idea! Libbie and I can 
both help. A brilliant idea!” Her shrill voice 
tore the foul air of the room. 

A sense of profound distress invaded Annie’s 
soul. Such a mother! Such a father! Such a 
house! 

In the parlor on the lounge sat Yekel, his eyes 
plunged into space, his heart beating with a feel¬ 
ing of triumph. 


THE LOVE CHILD 


87 


XXV 

One day, two days, three days passed, and 
Doctor Ellis did not come. Annie began to con¬ 
sider the idea that he might never come again. 
But her innermost self refused to accept the 
possibility. She knew distinctly that something 
had happened between Doctor Ellis and her 
father, but what it was, she was not sure. Some¬ 
thing told her that Doctor Ellis had been offended. 
She could not imagine why her father should have 
wanted to offend Doctor Ellis, nor why Doctor 
Ellis should have allowed himself to be offended. 
She was so harassed by the whole perplex¬ 
ing thing, that she could think of nothing 
else. She lay in silence on her chair-bed, her eyes 
glued upon the tenement opposite, listening for 
Doctor Ellis ’ footsteps. 

A week passed, and still he had not come. 

Eager as Annie had been to get out of bed, she 
was equally anxious now to stay there, as if by 
getting up she would be accepting Doctor Ellis ’ 
dismissal, and agreeing to his never coming to 
see her again. She hungered for him. 

Another day passed, and for some obscure 
reason Annie felt resentment toward her father. 
His footsteps grated on her nerves. She felt him 
an intrusion into her life, a noose about her neck. 
That day, Mira seeing Annie’s restlessness, per¬ 
suaded her to rise a little; she had her sit up for 


88 


THE LOVE CHILD 


supper. The effort tired Annie. Immediately 
after supper, she lay down again. 

Acting upon her inspiration, Gussie had, for 
almost a week now, been bringing home night- 
work. As soon as the supper dishes were washed, 
Mira, Libbie and Gussie gathered in a ragged 
circle in the middle of the room and began to sew 
buttons on boys’ pants. 

Mira said to Gussie: ‘‘Yes, my daughter, you 
may be bored by my telling you this so often, but 
it is better to be married once than to be an old 
maid twice/’ A pause. “Every mother wants 
the joy of seeing her daughters married.” An¬ 
other pause. “Worse mothers than I get this 
much joy out of life. I have borne children, and 
buried children, but I have never married one off. 
I have shed tears, but I have had no joys. If you 
have it in your power to give your mother a 
little joy, see, my child, why do you hold back?” 
A sigh. “If you went out and met men, I would not 
insist on a match-maker. But where do you go, and 
whom do you meet f Girls that stay home and do 
night-work, and who all day slave in a shop and 
meet men not good enough for them to marry, 
remain old maids.” Mira spat out. “I do not 
want an old maid on my hands. I have had 
enough sorrow.” 

Every night of the week, Mira had spoken upon 
this subject, and in this same way. Gussie was 
nearing her twenty-third birthday, and anxiety 


THE LOVE CHILD 


89 


on the score of her marriage prospects had sud¬ 
denly assailed Mira, so that she could scarcely 
think of anything else. Certainly it had seemed 
for a week now that she could speak of nothing 
else. Even Libbie was bored. Sniffing audibly, 
bumping her foot against her chair, she cried, 
“Oh, ma, why do you ask her! Go get a match¬ 
maker. It’s none of her business if you want to 
do it.” Turning to Gussie: “You mind mama 
always so much, why don’t you mind her now 
too! You don’t have to marry the match-maker, 
if you don’t like whiskers, but he can bring you a 
a nice young man to marry. Everybody gets 
married. I’m gonne get married. All the girls 
in my class say they’re gonne get married, so 
why can’t you, if it’s gonne give mama a little 
bit of pleasure!” 

She sniffed again, coughed, flung herself from 
side to side in her chair. She made such an amus¬ 
ing picture, that Mira and Gussie laughed. 

With their laughing mingled the low sounds 
of Yekel’s violin. He was playing “Traumerei” 
in the dark parlor. 

Libbie, missing Annie’s laughter, called out to 
her knowingly: 

“Say Ann, don’ je be such a innocent one. 
Never mind, I know.” Libbie had her own ideas 
about Annie’s and George Ellis’ friendship. 

Annie came abruptly out of the musing into 
which Yekel’s music and Mira’s monologue had 


90 


THE LOVE CHILD 


taken her; she had been dreaming of the prince 
of the fairy-tale, to whom she was the fair 
maiden. 

Before she had a chance to answer Libbie, a 
knock sounded on the door and almost immedi¬ 
ately Doctor Ellis came in. No one had heard 
his footsteps. 

Professionally anxious to make certain that 
his patient could be discharged, Doctor Ellis had 
at last resolved to make a short, final visit, in 
spite of the offensive, drunken father, who, in 
his common soul, probably suspected that he, 
Doctor Ellis, intended to charge for his visits 
and therefore prolonged them. 

He seemed like an apparition, the more so be¬ 
cause his visit was so brief. When the door had 
closed on him, Annie could scarcely realize either 
that he had been with her, or that he had left, 
and equally unbelievable was it that he w r as the 
same Doctor Ellis w T ho had come and gone so 
many times before; he had been so unfriendly 
this time! 

Why had her father stopped his playing? It 
seemed to her he was prying into her feelings. 
What right had he to pry into her feelings? 

The next moment, by an uncanny intuition, 
Annie knew that her father had deliberately calcu¬ 
lated to deprive her of Doctor Ellis’ friendship, 
though precisely why she did not know even yet. 
First she was puzzled, and then she was indig- 




THE LOVE CHILD 


91 


nant. A feeling of hatred for her father was 
about to surge up in her, when her mother pulled 
her up by crying: 

‘ ‘ Oh, Gussele, Gussele, now we have something 
really to celebrate. Let us celebrate, let us cele¬ 
brate. What better way to celebrate is there than 
by a wedding? See, let your mother make a 
match for you. See, I beg you.” 

Gussie dropped her eyes acquiescently, just as 
Yekel, who had heard everything, looked furtively 
into the room from the parlor. He wanted to make 
certain that Doctor Ellis had left. Jealous en¬ 
mity had torn through his heart like a sudden 
storm. He had heard the door close and ‘with it 
peace had returned to Yekel, but he wanted to 
be sure his peace was fully justified. Satisfied 
that Doctor Ellis was gone, the thought passed 
abstractedly through his mind: “She wants to 
marry her daughter off to any man at all as long 
as he can support her.” The next moment he 
was vividly alive to the baseness of match-making, 
and he felt disgust for Mira. 

Perversely he struck up a lively tune on his 
violin. 

“I did send away your doctor friend. Well, 
what if I did? Don’t you like it? Lump it,” 
said the lively tune to Annie. For a moment she 
lay tense, then she cried out: 

“Oh, for goodness sake, papa, stop that play¬ 
ing of yours! It makes me sick. It makes me 


92 


THE LOVE CHILD 


sick! And yon, mama, stop your chatter about 
match-makers, match-makers, match-makers! I’m 
sick—sick and disgusted!” 

And she burst into tears. 

XXVI 

A neighbor told Mira of several brilliant 
matches for which a Rabbi Fishbein was respon¬ 
sible. She recommended him highly. Mira 
dropped hints about him to Gussie. Soon a tacit 
understanding that Mira would consult this rabbi 
sprang up between her and Gussie. 

Gussie felt humiliated. She knew she was as 
pretty as any of the girls of her acquaintance 
who had found men without a match-maker’s aid, 
and she felt that the fates were treating her 
badly. She went about with a preoccupied and 
hurt air. At times she shed tears. 

Her daughter’s distress did not daunt Mira. 
She told herself that Gussie was a fool, and to 
listen to her objections one would have to be an 
even greater fool. She was the mother, and she 
was wiser; she would find a good man for Gussie 
and later Gussie would be grateful enough. 

While Mira went about thus musing, she reso¬ 
lutely put the home into shape for the coming 
event. She jerked things out of one corner, put 
them in another; she polished, swept; she covered 
defects in all sorts of ways. In her manner was 


THE LOVE CHILD 


93 


happy expectancy and an alertness for criticism. 
There was something in YekePs glances that told 
her he disapproved, and there was the sting of 
Annie’s outburst. But Mira felt strong enough 
to overcome all obstacles. Her tiny blue eyes 
shot sparks now at Yekel, now at Annie; it was 
as if she were telling them to remember that it 
was she whom they had to deal with and that 
they would have to get up very early in the morn¬ 
ing indeed to match her wits. Now and then she 
felt a martyr under their disapproving glances, 
for was she not thinking of Gussie’s best welfare? 
At such moments she leaned on God, and then she 
soon returned to her state of happy expectancy. 

At last the house was in order, and Gussie was 
the richer by a shirt waist and skirt, indispensible 
requisites as Mira thought, should the rabbi 
choose to make a preliminary visit of inspection. 

But as it happened, Rabbi Fishbein dispensed 
with this custom of his in the case of Gussie 
Cohen. It turned out that he had known Mira as 
a child, that she had sat on his knee, and that 
he had been struck by her precociousness, her 
sharp tongue, her keen wits. He had recognized 
her resemblance to her mother and had ques¬ 
tioned her as to her birthplace. Rabbi Fishbein 
was delighted to meet her again. Mira came 
away from him with the promise that he would 
find for her Gussie “de nicest yung men in de hul 
Nev York.” 


94 


THE LOVE CHILD 


XXVII 

A greatly excited Mira arrived home. She could 
scarcely wait for the day to end, so eager was she 
to tell Gussie of what had happened. She went 
about the house more noisily than ever. Though 
she was tempted time and again to confide in An¬ 
nie, she didn’t. Something told her not to. 

A scarlet patch on each of her cheeks and her 
glistening eyes gave her an air of secrecy. Annie 
called out to her: 

“Mama, what makes you so excited to-day?” 

Mira hesitated a moment; then it was as if a 
leash had been slipped from her tongue: ‘ ‘ What 
are you talking about,” she cried, nudging Annie 
with her elbow. And she proceeded to tell all 
the story. 

Having told, Mira’s self-confidence suddenly 
left her. “Ennele,” she said, tears of suppli¬ 
cation in her eyes, “you said ‘ Match-makers! ’ 
1 Match-makers!’ the other night; you made fun of 
me. And you and your father both look as if you 
would like to stab a knife in me. I had a hard 
enough time to get Gussie to agree; don’t in¬ 
fluence her against a match-maker.” With touch¬ 
ing eloquence, Mira proceeded to set forth the 
value of marrying off Gussie. Was she to work 
in a shop for the rest of her life? And what was 
to be the outcome of years of shop work but pre¬ 
mature old age, and disease? And who was to 


THE LOVE CHILD 


95 


say that a home and a good husband were not 
better than these, no matter by what means they 
were acquired? 

Annie had no clear idea of the meaning of mar¬ 
riage ; match-making, therefore, did not really ap¬ 
pear coarse to her. Her disapproval had begun 
with Mira’s nagging and at first had been con¬ 
fined to that. It was only recently that her dis¬ 
approval had taken on another quality, a quality 
she did not herself understand, except that in a 
vague but impressive ^way it came to her through 
her father’s glances. Often when Mira cajoled 
Gussie, Yekel glancing at Annie seemed to tangle 
her thoughts and rob her of volition; he seemed 
to draw her to him and, against her will, make 
her think match-making objectionable, her mother 
coarse. 

Now, as Mira spoke, Annie felt herself shed¬ 
ding her father’s dominance, and going over 
sympathetically to her mother. Yet it was with 
the greatest reluctance that she agreed to refrain 
from influencing Gussie. Even so, she felt the 
next moment as if she had been disloyal to some¬ 
thing good in herself, and with that feeling her 
father was somehow mingled. 

XXVIII 

Annie was in the parlor, asleep on the lounge, 
when Gussie came home from work. In spite of 
Annie’s promise to cooperate, Mira was exceed- 


96 


THE LOVE CHILD 


ingly glad she had the way clear of her for the 
immediate present; she felt she would do better 
with Gussie alone. At once her wits began work¬ 
ing at high speed, devising a way of approaching 
the subject. In a moment she had the whole 
plan in her mind. The introductory sentence was 
on the tip of her tongue when Gussie greatly as¬ 
tonished her by sinking into a chair and be¬ 
ginning to cry. 

“What is it, see Gussele? What is it?” Mira 
was alarmed; she felt frustrated, disheartened. 

She was not feeling very well, said Gussie, and 
she was unhappy; she wanted to be let alone. 
Would Mira mind if she went and lay down on 
the bed in the bedroom until supper time? 

“Nu, sure, nu, sure, lie down,” said Mira, feel¬ 
ing the keenest disappointment. She herself led 
Gussie to the bed, tucking her in under Yekel’s 
discarded winter coat, with its rusty cotton 
threads where the buttons had once been. 

When Gussie seemed calm, Mira went back to 
the kitchen to finish her preparations for supper, 
feeling that the fates had set themselves against 
her, even doubting God’s loyalty. Under the dis¬ 
appointment her enthusiasm ebbed, her self-con¬ 
fidence waned. Not only did she say nothing 
to Gussie that evening, but she managed to whis¬ 
per a warning in Annie’s ear: “Keep it a secret 
from Gussie—from your father too, and Libbie.” 
Delivering herself of this, Mira happened to 



THE LOVE CHILD 


97 


catch Yekel’s glance. A spirit of defiance seized 
her. She colored nnder it, and felt a momentary 
anger against Gussie, the unwitting cause of all 
these complications. 

As the evening wore on, Mira’s mind rejected 
all fears and doubts, and her heart rejected all 
complicated feelings. She reached a single, all- 
inclusive idea and intention: Yekel had to be 
bullied into agreement with her. It was as if by 
bullying him into agreement she could shut out 
the will of fate, and Gussie’s sensitiveness, and 
everything else that could arise to frustrate her 
plans. She could no longer stand Yekel’s un¬ 
spoken objections hammering against her pur¬ 
pose. It was as if he had weakened her intention 
to tell Gussie, and was responsible for Gussie’s 
tears. Mira resolved to have it “out” with Yekel 
as she had had it “out” with Annie. 

In bed that night, with Yekel beside her on 
the opposite slope, Mira in her mind poured in¬ 
dignation on Yekel, as if he had actually ex¬ 
pressed the opposition she felt in him. What 
right had he to object to plans of hers for the 
happiness of their daughter, when he had never 
been concerned about her unhappiness? Did he 
ever consider that Gussie had to slave in a shop? 
No, he did not; all he considered was his drink; 
he needed whiskey and got it; that was the begin¬ 
ning and end of his existence; no, not that alone—• 
he had also to have children, children, children 


98 


THE LOVE CHILD 


without end. A lot of the pain and responsibility 
of it he had borne. A father! . . . She 

worked herself up mentally to such a pitch of in¬ 
dignation and contempt that, regardless of the 
fact that Yekel was already half asleep, she whis¬ 
pered out to him in a hard, defensive tone, “Lis¬ 
ten, I’m getting a shadchen for Gussie.” 

The sudden booming—as it seemed to Yekel— 
of her voice against his sleepy ear startled him. 
In a thick voice he cried out a sudden, guttural 
“Hah?” 

Mira was annoyed. A hot flush went over her. 
“I’m talking about your oldest daughter, father; 
rub out your ears a little, and hear,” she snapped. 

Yekel was quite awake by now, but he was un¬ 
able to fasten his mind on what Mira was say¬ 
ing. 

“Do you hear me?” cried Mira in a shrill 
though low voice. 

Yekel heard her well enough, so he said “Yes,” 
as if in surprise. 

“Nu?” asked she. 

“What?” said Yekel. He and Mira never 
talked at night in bed. What could she want? 

“I said,” repeated Mira emphatically, “I am 
getting a shadchen for Gussie.” 

Yekel could neither distinctly place Gussie just 
at that moment, nor could he, in his sleepiness, 
see anything momentous in getting a shadchen 
for her. He made no answer. 


99 


THE LOVE CHILD 

« 

44 Have you nothing to say?” asked Mira, feel¬ 
ing some relief. 

“Say?” said Yekel. 

“Yes,” said Mira. 

Something made Yekel answer, “Ask Gussie.” 

Mira took it that he meant that if Gussie did 
not object, he did not object. She said nothing 
more. Her relief was great. For a long time 
she lay reflecting on how one person can mis¬ 
understand another; her husband, after all, 
wasn’t so bad; he did think of more than Annie; 
for all she knew, Yekel himself had perhaps 
thought of a shadchen for his eldest daughter. 
And how readily Annie had agreed to cooperate! 
Yes, Mira told herself, people misunderstand each 
other horribly; she had been stupidly concerned. 

And while Mira lay thinking kindly and feel¬ 
ing relief, full consciousness had come upon Yekel 
and he, too, lay thinking of match-making. To 
turn any woman over to any man, so long as he 
came with a guarantee that he made enough 
money to support her! How was it, he wondered 
sadly, that the Miras of the world had so little 
need for romance, while others of the same world 
starved for it? The question left him rueful, 
troubled and confused. 

XXIX 


The days dragged. 

Annie was gaining strength very slowly, and 



100 


THE LOVE CHILD 


she had nothing to do in the long days, nothing 
to look forward to. She grieved terribly over 
Nina. She missed her now more than ever. The 
thought of Doctor Ellis was a constant pain; 
even blaming her father did not help. She felt 
adrift, deserted, lonely, unhappy. 

Yekel, watching Annie out of the corners of 
troubled eyes, felt the days drag for him too. 
George Ellis was no longer there to deprive him 
of his better reason, and he was conscious not of 
himself but only of Annie. 

Had he not, by driving Doctor Ellis away, de¬ 
prived Annie of her only impetus toward a full 
recovery? The question weighed on him until it 
hurt. Had he not defeated his own best ends as 
w r ell, for what did he want more than to see An¬ 
nie herself again? 

Yeke'l felt himself to be a terrible failure; all 
his devotion toward Annie during her illness 
had been a farce, his very love for her a sort 
of fraud. He hated himself; a thousand times 
he told himself he would go back to drink and 
as many times he used an iron will to keep 
himself from doing so, with not the least feel¬ 
ing of satisfaction over his victory, but rather 
contempt for himself. He kept sober without 
wanting to; he loved and did harm to his beloved; 
he had nothing to give, yet he aspired to fill the 
place of one who had everything to give. He 
felt mean now before a mental vision of Doctor 


THE LOVE CHILD 


101 


Ellis, and ashamed, and contrite toward Annie. 
The days dragged unmercifully for him. 

For Mira the days dragged because she did 
not hear from Rabbi Fishbein. Three weeks had 
passed with no word. And in all this time she had 
not told Gussie of her visit with Rabbi Fishbein, 
having finally decided, in the face of Gussied 
break-down, that it would be wiser to wait until 
she had some definite word. She had a super¬ 
stition that one could kill chickens by counting 
them before they were hatched. But she wanted 
very much to tell Gussie, and so the days dragged 
through her enforced silence. She began to fear 
that Rabbi Fishbein would fail her. 

Then came word from the shadchen. He had 
found the 44 nicest yung man in de hul Nev York.” 

XXX 

It was right after supper. Annie was sitting 
at the table working out problems in arithmetic. 
Yekel, his eyes caught by a headline in the news¬ 
paper about a miners ’ strike to end which the 
government had called out the militia, forgot to 
follow his custom of slipping away to the parlor 
immediately after the meal. He picked up the 
newspaper and began eagerly reading the ac¬ 
count, indignation against government inter¬ 
ference between capital and labor rising higher 
and higher in him as he read. 


102 


THE LOVE CHILD 


Annie glancing np now and then, catching his 
expression, wondered what it was he was read¬ 
ing that kept his face so distraught. Kinder feel¬ 
ings than she had known for him in a long 
while flickered in her heart. Her health was very 
much improved, and she was happily looking for¬ 
ward to release from her housebound condition; 
to-morrow she was going back to school! Perhaps 
these had something to do with her kinder feel¬ 
ings toward her father. 

The thought popped into her head that she had 
hardly noticed him at all since the times when 
he sat by her bedside tending her so devotedly. 
She felt a little contrite. After that she could 
not concentrate on her arithmetic. She sat draw¬ 
ing hieroglyphics, remembering the things her 
father had done for her, how he had fed her little 
bits of ice, how he had covered her and uncovered 
her as her fever rose and fell, how he had sat 
stroking her hand. He had been very kind, she 
told herself, and she wondered what he must have 
felt when she seemed to forget all about him as 
soon as she was better. She remembered the 
night of Nina’s death, her father’s pain when he 
had thought it was she who was dead. Her heart 
went out with yearning for Nina, ached a bit with 
a need for Doctor Ellis, and came back to Yekel. 
She glanced up at him again. He was still im¬ 
mersed in his newspaper, and the lines on his face 
were deeper than before. 


THE LOVE CHILD 


103 


Libbie who sat reading in a far corner of the 
room, coughed and interrupted Annie’s train of 
thought. Yekel glanced up from his newspaper, 
looked down again immediately. His face was 
now clear of lines. The thought flew through 
Annie’s mind that she was a fool to feel contrite 
toward him; had he not sent Doctor Ellis away 
rudely? How could he have done such a thing 
when he knew how much Doctor Ellis meant to 
her? He had been jealous, just plain jealous, 
that’s what he had been—and she felt contempt 
for her father. The thought that her father had 
been jealous was new and startling; her mind 
dwelt on it. 

Gussie, who had come home from work late, 
and was only now finishing her supper, pushed 
back her chair from the table preparatory to ris¬ 
ing. Mira who had stood silently watching the 
coffee on the stove, that it might not boil over, 
cried: 

1 ‘ Wait Gussie, you have not had your coffee 
yet. ’ ’ 

“I don’t want any coffee,” said Gussie shortly, 
as she rose. 

This unusual behavior of the usually docile 
Gussie alarmed Mira. For goodness sake, cried 
her inner self, was that girl going off at a tem¬ 
peramental tangent again? Mira, having Rabbi 
Fishbein’s word, was resolved to break the news 
to Gussie to-night, without fail. She could not 


104 


THE LOVE CHILD 


bear the thought of further delay. In her shrill 
voice, become shriller from her nervous tension, 
she urged, “But you always drink coffee.” Just 
then she caught sight of Gussie’s plate, on which 
lay most of her food untouched. “Did you ever 
in your life see this?” she cried. “You have 
eaten nothing!” She stopped, as if suddenly 
turned dumb. Then speech returned to her. Cof¬ 
fee-pot in hand, she advanced to the middle of the 

t 

room and blurted out, careless of the presence of 
others, “Now is no time to starve yourself. You 
want to be reduced to skin and bones? In the 
way corpses eat, so they look. Girls who look like 
corpses men don’t marry. Rabbi Fishbein has a 
man—a nice young man, respectable—with a lot 
of money—a nice young man. Rabbi Fishbein 
described my daughter to him as plump and rosy- 
cheeked.” 

Everyone was looking up questioningly at her 
as she stood there, her cheap black cotton waist 
a little too big for her, her black brilliantine skirt, 
that had fitted her snugly before the tragedy of 
little Nina, now hanging loose. She looked 
pathetic in her eagerness. 

Yekel rose and clumped out of the room, into 
the parlor, feeling sorry for Mira, and experienc¬ 
ing an odd sense of ownership in his daughter 
Gussie that he had never felt before. 

Soon Annie followed him, but she stopped in 
the bedroom, and lay down on the bed. The 



THE LOVE CHILD 


105 


whole world seemed upside-down; she felt dis¬ 
gust, enigmatical disgust, and she felt pity and 
regret, loss and need, yearning and loneliness, 
without any idea to whom or to what to at¬ 
tach each of these emotions. One thing she knew 
clearly, and that was that somehow, in some way, 
a change would come, that things would not go 
on as they were. 

XXXI 

Later in the evening, when Mira had concluded 
her talk with Gussie, and Gussie was well won 
around to her mother’s practical philosophy, they 
sat, chairs close together, talking about things in 
general. 

“For Annie,” said Gussie a little tearfully, 
“you won’t need to get a match-maker. Pretty 
as she is, and a colnege lady as she will be, her 
husband will seek her out.” 

Said Mira loyally, “If she will be a colnege 
lady it’s because you work in a shop to support 
her; and if you think she looks down on you for 
having a match made for you, you make a big 
mistake. She said the other day. . . And 

Mira gave her imagination full swing. From the 
things she reported Annie to have said the other 
day, Gussie could not help drawing the conclusion 
that not alone did Annie approve, but she had 
quite inspired her mother to take the match¬ 
making step. Gussie was pleased. She had a 


106 


THE LOVE CHILD 


peculiar regard for Annie, a deep respect. Was 
not Annie an American girl, while Gussie was 
still foreign, and would always remain so? Gus¬ 
sie ’s sense of degradation dropped entirely from 
her. Her good heart swelled with kind and grate¬ 
ful emotions. “How beautiful Annie has grown,” 
she mused in her softest voice, “since she has 
been getting better. She is developing, too, get¬ 
ting fatter, and her eyes, aren’t they lovely? 
So much goodness and wisdom in them. She is 
a sister and a daughter to be proud of.” 

Inspired by Gussie, Mira’s wifely and mater¬ 
nal pride took fire: “Oh,” she cried glowingly, 
“our Annie! A prize she is; she has sense, 
beauty; she is-” Mira bent over as if to im¬ 

part a great secret, (< like her father; says little, 
but thinks a lot. What do you suppose, your 
father is a fool? Your mother w T ould not ha^e 
married a fool. Down at bottom, your father is 
a whole philosopher; and Annie is the same. She 
is like her father—smart, learned. God bless 
her and keep her well.” Then, “And now, Gus¬ 
sie, in a few days he is coming, your suitor. Eat 
a lot till then, sleep, don’t worry, and look your 
best.” 

“All right,” said Gussie, modestly dropping 
her eyes. 

XXXII 

The next few days, Mira’s bustling filled the 



THE LOVE CHILD 


107 


house. She had aroused the neighbors almost to 
her own pitch of excitement, and time and again 
the door would open without any preliminary 
knocking, upon one or another of them who came 
to inquire if Mira needed a little of this, or a 
little of that and, incidentally, to pry into the 
progress Mira had made in her preparations, the 
preparations consisting in another complete over¬ 
hauling of the room-of-all-atfairs, and in. baking. 

The confusion drove Yekel and Annie into 
themselves and involuntarily toward each other. 
Without knowing it, each felt sorry for the other. 

XXXIII 

Gala Sabbath though it was not, Mira was pre¬ 
paring the gala Jewish meal—chicken soup, 
chicken, gefulte fish, comput, tea and heechlech. 
For this was the day of days. Eabbi Fishbein 
and Joshua Levine were coming. 

According to Rabbi Fishbein’s report, Joshua 
Levine, the “nicest yung men in the hul Nev 
York,” was part-owner of a butcher shop, with a 
clear thousand dollars in the bank, in his own 
name. 

Mira was excitedly working over the evening 
meal. She so wanted everything to taste partic¬ 
ularly good that nothing, as she tasted it, quite 
suited her, and she strove, by adding flavorings 
of one sort and another, to make improvements. 



108 


THE LOVE CHILD 


Scarlet patches broke out over her face and 
neck as she worried, all over again, about Yekel 
and Annie. Would they really cooperate? 
Would Yekel be friendly, or would he maintain 
his eternal silence? Would Annie show her learn¬ 
ing and be a credit to the family? And Libbie 
must be told to control her sniffling and her 
coughing. Now, if Benjamin had not run away 
from home—she changed her mind and told her¬ 
self that it was well he did run away, for he stut¬ 
tered, and a stutterer reflected no glory. Mira 
sighed as she wondered where her boy was. Two 
years ago he had disappeared as completely as if 
he had sunk into the earth. But he was safe, 
she told herself, doubtless working on some farm, 
for after he had gone she had found a stack of 
farm literature hidden away in a box in the 
closet, with his pencil marks on it. 

Thoughts of Benjamin recalled poor little Nina 
and, in succession, each of Mira’s other chil¬ 
dren who had died. . . . Mingled with Mira’s 
happy emotions were sad ones enough, and 
under them she grew ever more afraid of the pos¬ 
sibility of Yekel and Annie failing her in this, 
her chief attempt to gain a little joy for all of 
them. Although Gussie’s marriage would cut 
off the family’s source of income, Mira could 
think of marriage for Gussie only as a blessing 
to them all. Mira trusted to fate to bring another 
source of income; she was sure it would. Would 



THE LOVE CHILD 


109 


she could be so sure of Yekel’s gentlemanliness 
this evening, and Annie’s friendliness, she told 
herself. There was no other source of income, 
of course, excepting Yekel. “He will continue 
to keep sober, and bring home his wages,” she 
told herself, as if by the thought she could 
flatter Yekel, and by the flattery encourage him. 
Yet though she thought this, she experienced 
momentary fright. Maybe this very night, for 
spite, Yekel would come home drunk! The 
thought held her for one terrible moment, then 
she rejected it. It would not happen. It could 
not. 

Presently Yekel came home, quite sober. Mira 
out of deep gratitude broke a precedent; she 
spoke to him. She asked him to wash himself 
and to brush his clothes. Yekel was well aware 
of the occasion; the last thing he cared to do was 
to appear a party to it, but he did as Mira asked, 
for he did not want to rouse her anger; he could 
not endure the thought of her voice rising shrilly; 
and also he was sorry for her; he disliked her, but 
he was sorry for her; he was disgusted with 
her, but he was sorry for her. She was unfor¬ 
tunate, he told himself, in having a man so dif¬ 
ferent from herself for a husband. 

Gussie, with rings under her eyes, pale and 
looking rueful, came home soon after Yekel, and, 
immediately afterwards, Annie returned. 

“Ennele,” pleaded Mira, “go help Gussie to 


110 


THE LOVE CHILD 


get fixed up. Fix her hair nice and help her put 
on her new waist and skirt. Pull her waist down 
snug all around. Make her look nice. ” 

Annie’s reaction was the same as her father’s. 
She was disgusted with her mother, and sorry for 
her. She went and helped Gussie primp. 

XXXIV 

Joshua Levine: a gaunt gentleman, pale faced, 
with rather high cheek bones, a strong chin, and 
earnest gray eyes, bespectacled. 

Rabbi Fishbein: an abbreviated person, clad 
in new black brilliantine, a little baggy; with an 
imposing long white beard, small, red-rimmed 
dark eyes, and a flat, spreading nose that emitted 
staccato noises into a bandanna handkerchief every 
few minutes. 

These two gathered with the Cohen family 
about the table in the room-of-all-affairs, spread 
with a table cloth a little too blue, and covered 
with good things to eat, steaming hot. 

“Oigh,” cried Mira with false timidity, “just 
to-day the fish isn’t so good.” 

“Not good?” cried Joshua Levine in response, 
casting furtive glances at the prospective bride. 
“It is so very good, I feel like licking my fingers.” 

The gratified Mira beamed, but added, still 
timidly, “But Gussie, long life on her, makes it 
much better. You should taste her cooking. 


THE LOVE CHILD 


111 


She’s a better cook than her mother a thousand 
times.” 

The lie received its due and appreciative notice 
as a truth on the part of Joshua Levine, who said 
nothing in reply, busying himself with his food. 
Gussie had her first opportunity to look him over. 
His appearance pleased her, was, in fact, close to 
her ideal. Her heart fluttered. 

Meanwhile Yekel and Annie were squirming in 
their seats. They felt the weight of Mira’s ex¬ 
pectation that they enter into the spirit of the 
dinner with friendliness. Yekel did not want to, 
and Annie could not. Annie was racking her 
brain for something to do or say; Yekel was 
withdrawing farther and farther into himself, 
hating the situation, determined to leave the table 
at the first opportunity. Joshua Levine irritated 
him, and Rabbi Fishbein looked to him like an 
owl, the pity of it being that he was not asleep. 

Said Joshua in very wise fashion, after a self- 
conscious cough, “Cooking is a very important 
asset in a woman. It should be the chief ambi¬ 
tion of her life.” 

Yekel was seized with an impulse to protect 
Gussie. He wanted to snatch her up bodily and 
rush off with her, away from this creature who 
had such opinions. He gave Joshua a dark, fur¬ 
tive glance which Mira caught, and which sent 
her blood rushing through her veins. “Will you 
have some more soup?” she interjected hastily, 


112 


THE LOVE CHILD 


holding out her hand for Rabbi Fishbein’s plate. 

Rabbi Fishbein fluttered his eyelids, bent 
slightly forward, and made a courteous refusal 
with five widely spread fingers of one hand and a 
mild shaking of the head. “It’s very good,” he 
said with dignified obsequiousness, “but I’ve had 
enough.” He blew his nose in his immense hand¬ 
kerchief. 

“You?” Mira turned to Joshua. Joshua 
looked at his plate, and then over at the platter 
of chicken. He almost said “Yes” when he real¬ 
ized there was much more on the bill of fare. 
“No, thanks,” he said. He turned to Yekel, 
about whose silence he was a little curious, and 
upon whom he wanted somehow to make an im¬ 
pression. Besides, shrewdly observant as he 
was, he had noticed a copy of the Yiddish For- 
warts on a chair the moment he had entered the 
home, and the interrogation had leaped into his 
mind, “Who’s the socialist around here?” Joshua 
objected to socialism. His idea of a socialist was 
a disgruntled human being; he hoped it was Yekel 
rather than Gussie who was thus infected. 

“Have you been reading about the miners’ 
strike?” he asked, affecting the German pronun¬ 
ciation of some of the Yiddish, and assuming 
what he felt was an air of importance. He glanced 
at Gussie as if to say that this was an affair 
between men; women were out of it. Attracted 
by Gussie’s round hips and full bosom, and by 


THE LOVE CHILD 


113 


her womanliness, he wanted to make a good im¬ 
pression. 

Yekel directly addressed had to make an an¬ 
swer. He wanted to be civil, but the word “Yes” 
fell curtly from his lips. 

Joshua was not daunted. “I suppose,” he 
said, “you are in sympathy with the strikers?” 
His face wore a supercilious smile. 

“Yes,” replied Yekel, again curtly, shifting un¬ 
easily in his chair. 

A great relief. Joshua glanced approvingly at 
Gussie. He now addressed himself to the com¬ 
pany in general. 

“That is just the trouble with our people here 
in America,” he declaimed, “they get spoiled. 
The good times they have here spoil them.” He 
flushed from real indignation and continued hotly, 
“Who makes possible the good times for the 
workers if not the bosses? The bosses give them 
jobs. Without bosses they would have no jobs, 
and no wages, and without wages they would 
starve. Is it a man’s fault if he is smart enough 
to be a boss? It takes brains to be a boss. 
What do these workers want anyway? They 
have no brains. They ought to be sent back 
to Bussia where they would have to fear a czar, 
and pogroms, and eat hay like horses, and work 

like horses too. Here in America-” He broke 

off. In a more indulgent tone he resumed after 
a moment: “Well some people are like dogs—you 



114 


THE LOVE CHILD 


do them a favor and they hark at you. For my 
part I say Three Cheers for the Bosses!” 

Annie saw her father’s face flush. “You see 
you are a boss,” he said shortly, surprising him¬ 
self as much as anybody. 

“So I am,” boasted Joshua, expanding his 
chest importantly. “I, too, worked for others 
when I first came to this country. It was harder 
than death. The bosses squeezed you to skin and 
bone. But I made up my mind to become my own 
boss. I slaved, I starved, I saved. I went into 
business for myself when I had a little money. 
That is the real beauty of America; if you are a 
real person you have your chance; you don’t 
have to stick in the mud.” 

Annie cast her eyes toward her mother and 
Gussie. 

How profoundly impressed they looked! Glanc¬ 
ing from them to her father, who seemed terribly 
annoyed, she had a feeling of helplessness as if 
she were a cork upon water, tossed hither and 
thither. As for the bosses, and strikers, and a 
chance in America—she did not know what to 
think; she only wondered. Then Yekel spoke 
again. 

“Real person,” he said reflectively, as if to 
himself. A look of pain was in his eyes. 

“Yes, a real person in America has a chance,” 
quickly interjected Joshua Levine. 

Yekel remained silent a moment. Slowly he 


THE LOVE CHILD 


115 


brought his glance to meet his opponent’s. “Real 
person?” he repeated. And then suddenly, like 
a hurricane, there swept over him a sense of all 
idealism in the world outraged, insulted. Who 
were these Joshua Levines that they dared take 
it upon themselves to say w T ho the real people of 
the world were? What did they know about it? 

Indignation released his tongue. 

“You,” he said, “you think there is only one 
kind of real person—a money-maker, a boss.” 
His voice was hoarse. He paused. His eyes 
searching Joshua through, he continued: “A real 
person—the heart makes the real person—the 
soul. A real person? That is he who feels with 

the heart, who knows with the soul, who-” 

He broke off abruptly, with a short mirthless 
laugh. He lapsed into a drunken manner, bending 
forward loosely, and added as if confidentially, 
“Real person? Why, you know nothing about it.” 
In a flash his inarticulate self took possession of 
Yekel again. 

He glanced awkwardly about him, and cowered 
back in his chair, oppressed at the sight of what 
seemed a host of people. He wanted to flee. 

Annie, watching her father, felt herself con¬ 
fused as to his identity. He seemed to be not 
himself, but Doctor Ellis, wonderful and ap¬ 
proachable. Heart—soul—these struck familiar 
chords. Doctor Ellis had told her that the soul was 
in the heart and was that part of a person that 



116 


THE LOVE CHILD 


loves the good and the beautiful. Then her father, 
too, knew that? He knew what Doctor Ellis knew? 
Looking at Yekel now, Annie was certain that 
he did, that Yekel knew more, was more than 
Doctor Ellis. 

A palpitating eagerness to know her father 
seized her. 

Questions began to burn on her tongue. She 
wanted to ask her father whether—Oh, it wasn’t 
only one thing she wanted to ask him—she wanted 
to ask him everything. She would. She was 
about to speak when Yekel rose abruptly and in 
a dead silence left the table. 

Everyone seemed as startled as Annie. 

Joshua was the first to come back to himself. 
He was pleased that Mira and Gussie were cha¬ 
grined ; it showed them to be sensitive, as women 
should be. 

“Now,” he said breezily, addressing them both, 
“cheer up, cheer up. What’s a little queerness 
in a father? Nothing. Nothing at all. A person 
is responsible only for himself. I am broad¬ 
minded and liberal.” He felt a hero. 

Though Mira was cheered by this show of gen¬ 
erosity, she scarcely dared hope for the best. 
It was one thing to say an ill-natured father 
didn’t matter, and another thing to be willing to 
take such a father for one’s own. 

Never was there a more surprised woman than 
Mira when, the next morning, Rabbi Fishbein 


THE LOVE CHILD 


117 


came to tell her that Joshua Levine was willing 
to take Gussie “wie zie shtayt un gayt,” (with¬ 
out goods and effects), so much did he like her. 

XXXV 

Annie, hearing the announcement, felt a swift 
return of her former disgust. But it was only- 
momentary and belonged, it seemed, in some 
other world; a world she had left the night be¬ 
fore when her father had spoken to Joshua 
Levine. All night long she had lain awake, cher¬ 
ishing in her heart that one quick glimpse she 
had caught of the man who was her father. Hence¬ 
forth Doctor Ellis was no more. Before her now 
opened a new world, a world upon which the sun 
had just risen, and into which she must go to 
seek the soul of Yekel, her father. 


BOOK THREE 


XXXVI 

W HEN Annie reached the point of consider¬ 
ing means by which to make friends with 
her silent, brooding father, a sense of the im¬ 
mense difficulty of the undertaking made her 
heart fail. From the time Annie could remember, 
her father had been a silent and disregarded fig¬ 
ure in the home. No one spoke to him, he spoke 
to no one, and he came and went without rousing 
any interest in anyone. How, suddenly, make 
overtures to him? Annie felt the need of help. 
At last she decided to invoke the aid of her sis¬ 
ter Libbie. She doubted Libbie’s usefulness, she 
did not know why, but her need of an ally was 
compelling. 

One warm afternoon, on her return from school, 
she invited Libbie to come and sit with her on 
the fire-escape. She had something “private ’ f to 
talk about. Privacy in the home was an impossi¬ 
bility, and the streets were too crowded, dirty 
and heat laden. 

The fire-escape, so called for w T ant of a better 

name, was a slip of stone considerably wider than 

118 


THE LOVE CHILD 


119 


a sill, outside the parlor window, decorated with 
an iron rod on either side. For what purpose 
the parlor window was so endowed must forever 
remain a mystery. It connected with nothing, 
led nowhere, had no visible function to perform. 

As the Cohens lived two stories heavenward, 
and a fall into an air shaft, even if padded with 
many kinds of refuse, was not without hazard, 
the girls sat—the upper half of them out, the 
lower half within—each leaning against an iron 
rod. 

“Wha’ je wan’a tell me?” Libbie was curious. 

“About papa.” 

“About papa!” 

Libbie had a way of lifting her reddish brows 
with the upward inflection of her voice. She 
was not an attractive child, with her eternal 
restlessness; she was never still. Just now she 
was smoothing the stone fringe with her hand, 
and sniffling. 

Seated beside her sister, Annie appeared in 
sharp contrast. Everything about her bespoke in¬ 
dividuality. Her brooding blue eyes seemed to 
open upon a labyrinth of soul. 

“Yes, about papa. I think we are getting old 
enough so we should feel responsible for the way 
he is and the way he treats us.” 

Libbie, perplexed, asked, “So what!” 

A pause, vibrant with Annie’s suppressed 
eagerness. “So this--” She drew closer to her 



120 


THE LOVE CHILD 


sister. “I think we ought to ask him what the 
pieces are that he plays on his violin, and ask 
him to tell us the stories. We could get him talk¬ 
ing that way. He goes now Saturday afternoons 
to Seward Park to listen to the band. Maybe, if 
we asked him, he’d take us along, and he’d know 
we were interested in things he likes. Anyway, 
we ought to do something, and we don’t do any¬ 
thing. We hardly know him. He’s like a stranger 
in our house. It’s terrible.” These were the 
thoughts that had mellowed in her mind. 

Libbie was a little too astonished to be alto¬ 
gether impressed. But gradually Annie’s ear¬ 
nestness won her over. 

“I’m willing to try,’’ she said. 

“Oh, are you?” cried Annie anxiously. Then, 
“We’ll begin to-night. At supper we’ll ask—we’ll 
ask him what paper he reads, if it is the Tageblatt 
or the Fomvarts. When he goes in to play, we’ll 
begin by telling him what piece we like best. You 
know, and little by little we’ll get him used to us. 
That’s it. Used to us. He doesn’t seem used to 
us.” 

The sisters looked into each other’s eyes. 
Libbie was the first to turn hers away. “Ain’t 
it different in our house than in other houses?” 
she said, and reflectively added, “Papa and 
mama are like strangers, and all of us and 
papa.” She shrugged. 

“It don’t have to be,” said Annie. “We can 


THE LOVE CHILD 


121 


make mama different too. If mama were dif¬ 
ferent, papa might like her.” 

“Doesn’t he like her?” Libbie turned with 
astonishment upon her sister. 

“Like her? No, he doesn’t. He doesn’t like 
her at all. She annoys him. That’s why he 
avoids her.” 

Libbie burst out, “Gosh, then I don’t know. 
He didn’t have to marry her. I don’t know at 
all. I don’t understand him. He’s funny.” She 
was all at sea in this world. 

4 ‘ Neither do I know, ’ ’ answered Annie. ‘ 1 Let’s 
find out.” 

“All right, let’s.” 


XXXYII 

But it did not work at all. When Annie ques¬ 
tioned Yekel as to the paper he read, he ignored 
her. When she asked him a second time, he finally 
mumbled some unintelligible answer. After this 
he assumed a forbidding expression on his face, 
which did not leave him for the remainder of the 
supper period. 

So the girls, by a wink, agreed that one ques¬ 
tion was enough for a beginning, and deferred 
musical discussion. 

And Yekel, when he was undressing for bed, 
stopped when he had taken off his suspenders, to 
stare absently into space. Over and over again 


122 


THE LOVE CHILD 


Annie’s voice sounded in his mind, “Papa, what 
paper do you read?” 

His irresolution finally got on Mira’s nerves. 
Tucked away on her slope of the bed, she was 
anxious to close her eyes and go to sleep. The 
gaslight, dim as it was, made sleep impossible. 

“Nu, what are you dreaming about?” she cried, 
“come to sleep.” 

XXXVIII 

All next day Annie’s plaintive question echoed 
in Yekel’s mind, and disturbed him. Though he 
felt behind her overture something new and good, 
he shrank from it. He did not have the spirit 
now to go out in answer, he told himself. Had 
Annie not turned away from him to Doctor El¬ 
lis, he meditated, it would have been different, 
for so much of his reserve had already been 
broken down. Now it was a matter of beginning 
all over again, a thing he couldn’t do. 

As he sat in the sweat shop ruminating in this 
vein, he was so conscious of the lurking disap¬ 
proval in Eeifa Teitelbaum’s eyes that every 
little while, with an earnest effort, he roused him¬ 
self out of his abstraction, his heart beating heav¬ 
ily within him. When night came he w r as ex¬ 
hausted. He sat down to supper, his nerves dis¬ 
traught, earnestly hoping that Annie would “leave 
him alone.” 

,Annie sensed his agitation. She managed to 


THE LOVE CHILD 


123 


convey a meaning sign to Libbie, and neither at¬ 
tempted to make conversation. 

Immediately after supper, Yekel mechanically 
picked up his hat and went out of the house. 

Some time later he was seated in a corner of 
the old Brooklyn Bridge. For all that people 
passed and traffic, the bridge had an aspect of 
being deserted. It had an air of brooding about 
it, an air of ominous slumber. The light, pick¬ 
ing out the black splotches of dirt on the pave¬ 
ment, slanted unpromisingly away. The torpid 
water below lapped languidly against the mossy 
buoys. 

Vague memories of babbling brooks came back 
to Yekel as he sat abstractedly staring down into 
the river. A restlessness came over him. It was 
not until then that he knew he was battling with 
his craving for drink, that it was more intense 
now than it had been at any time since Nina’s 
death and Annie’s illness. All day it had been 
stirring in him like a sleepy beast, though he had 
ignored it. 

He frowned darkly. He bit his lower lip until 
it hurt. . . . Sparrows chirped past, close to 
him. A fleeting, exquisite emotion, like the sweep 
of the bow over the strings of a violin, a vague 
nostalgia, passed over Yekel’s heart, and left him 
feeling heavy. Through half shut eyes he watched 
the languid stir of the water, listening to its 
“tlick, tlick” against the buoys. Was the water’s 


124 


THE LOVE CHILD 


eternal stir, he wondered, from a restlessness 
such as man’s? Somewhere in its w r atery bulk 
had it perhaps a heart? He felt a sudden im¬ 
patience with himself and abruptly shifted his 
position. Thought and feeling, what were they? 
Dead things, he told himself, to which only action 
gave life. All his life he had spent on dead 
things-dead things- 

A voice in his ear interrupted his brooding. . 
. . Annie saying: “Papa, what paper do you 

read?” Yekel straightened up and smiled wist¬ 
fully. . . . The desire for drink leaped up 

again sharp and sudden, like a flame, and died 
down as suddenly, for someone was whispering 
to him very plainly that Annie longed to lead him 
into a new and better life and that he ought to 
go. ... A choking sensation seized his throat. 
He knew that Annie had this ambition for him, 
he managed to answer back. He paused and 
looked about him. The fact that no one was in 
sight seemed to alarm him. “I guess I know 
what my own child wants to do for me,” he whis¬ 
pered with bravado as if to someone present, 
“and—and —sure I’ll let her.” 

Mocked the turbid water below: “Drunkard! 
Drunkard! ’ ’ 

Yekel felt ashamed and then an angry heat 
broke over him. With a sudden swift movement 
he leaned far over the low stone wall. “Shut up!” 
he hissed, and began to think about Annie again. 




THE LOVE CHILD 


125 


He now felt a keen victory in her coming over to 
him from Doctor Ellis. There was a swift 
shifting of the scenery. He was in Feifa Teitel- 
baum’s shop, shoulders stooped over a heavyweight 
coat, and it was years ago. “What will happen 
when she first understands her father is a drunk¬ 
ard?” he was wondering. He came back to the 
present and recalled Annie’s eyes when first she 
had understood he was a drunkard, and how he 
had longed to coax away, bit by bit, the bitter 
welling of pain in them. He went back again to 
the past and remembered how he had told him¬ 
self that he must never expect other than words 
of censure from her. The more wonderful seemed 
her question: “Papa, what paper do you read?” 
Recalling the few simple words now, the soul of 
Yekel’s fatherhood came out in his eyes; he felt 
proud, glad, triumphant. 

The water below seemed to burst into scornful 
laughter. Yekel’s heart gave an anguished jump, 
then filled with shame. He cast a sort of home¬ 
less look about him. The craving for drink 
rushed upon him like something alive. He 
paused, terrified. IJe could not fail Annie, he told 
himself, he would not. His breafh came thick. 
His soul seemed suspended. 

Then up to Yekel’s lips a woman’s white hand 
lifted a tumbler. . . . Yekel shut his eyes. . . . 

Before his inner vision a brood of chicks passed 
slowly by, digging in the earth for sustenance. 


126 


THE LOVE CHILD 


Now one, now another picked up its feed, and all 
of them together went on their patient, spasmodic 
search. From somewhere came the smell of new- 
mown hay. 

A flash of things absurdly, unreasonably irrele¬ 
vant. Snow. A howling wind. An inn. . . . 

Yekel drank eagerly. 

His head dropped upon his breast. A sigh of 
defeat rose from the depths of his being. 

Hours later, the point of a policeman’s club 
lightly resting upon the top of Yekel’s head woke 
him up. He rose and, without memory, lum¬ 
bered away. 

XXXIX 


Annie and Libbie said very little to each other 
until it w T as eleven o’clock and their father had 
not yet come home. 

“Gosh,” then remarked Annie in a whisper, 
as she and Libbie, in their task of laying out the 
proper bedding for the numerous beds, collided 
at the parlor door, “if he comes home drunk 
now it will be like—spite work.” Her young face 
looked blanched in the sickly gaslight. 

“It would spoil everything,” concurred Libbie. 

Then each with her burden of bedding that 
strained at the flabby muscles of her arm, turned 
on her way. 

When they met again on the second round, 
Annie whispered, “We won’t be able to talk here. 



THE LOVE CHILD 


127 


Let’s go out after a while in the hall, in the water- 
closet to talk.” 

“All right, let’s,” answered Libbie. 

Ten minutes later they were in the cubby-hole 
of half rotted wood, and Annie was saying, “I 
feel so miserable.” 

“No use feeling miserable,” replied Libbie, 
knocking her foot lightly against the door. 

“I’m miserable, and scared, too,” con¬ 
tinued Annie, as if to herself. She added, “I 
wish we had tried to get closer to papa sooner.” 

“But you were sick,” said Libbie, biting her 
finger nails. 

“Yes, but there was time before then.” 

“Before? You—maybe you didn’t think of it. 
You were too young.” Libbie was unconsciously 
repeating what Annie had once said. 

“Only a little over six months younger.- 

Libbie kept her eyes upon her sister’s face a 
moment, scrutinizingly. 

“You know,” she remarked, apropos of nothing, 
apparently, “you’ve changed an awful lot since 
you were sick.” 

“I have? How?” asked Annie. She was 
taken aback by her sister’s shrewd observation; 
Annie had made an effort to hide the change that 
had taken place in her. 

“I don’t know,” said Libbie, “kind of—like you 
feel more important.” 

Annie started. 


128 


THE LOVE CHILD 


Libbie continued, “I don’t know just how to 
say so. Sometimes I think you feel better than 
us.” Libbie didn’t really think that, but she was 
paving the way to a worming out of confidences, 
and also letting out a thought or two that had 
been with her for a long time. She continued, 
keeping cautiously observant , 4 ‘ With a grand man 
like Doctor Ellis who was friendly with you and 
everything—you could easy get stuck up. Why 
not?” She was ever so eager to hear the reply. 

Annie become electrically aware of the inquisi¬ 
tiveness and suspicion lurking behind her more 
worldly sister’s words. “Oh, no, not stuck up,” 
she answered impotently. 

Libbie smiled knowingly. i ‘ Gee, not any 
more,” she cried. “Why ought you to be? He’s 
out of love with you now, easy seen.” 

Annie’s eyelids fell several times in quick suc¬ 
cession. Swiftly she recalled the smiling, mean¬ 
ing glances that used to fall from Libbie upon 
her when she and Doctor Ellis sat together. 
Those glances now revealed to her their full 
measure of derision. So Libbie had thought she 
was in love with Doctor Ellis! Annie knew in 
what contempt Libbie held love—it was an evil, 
leading to greater and greater evil, and a condi¬ 
tion to be ashamed of, to blush over. 

Annie felt as if a net had closed about her, and 
she were helpless to extricate herself. At last, 
“You are mistaken,” she said, and a shadowy 



THE LOVE CHILD 


129 


vision of the Prince in the fairy-tale Doctor Ellis 
had read to her floated before her. 

Mira poked her red head into the hall. “Tzil- 
dern,” she called, “kom shlippen.” Sometimes 
Mira spoke English. 

The girls came out of their hiding place into 
the house and parted in silence. 

Annie went about making her bed slowly, ab¬ 
stractedly. Then she undressed. At last she got 
under the covers. She lay staring blankly out 
of the window. She sighed relief when Gussie 
turned off the gaslight. 

In the darkness Annie’s mind and emotions 
seemed to clear. She was all concerned about 
her father again; but in a curious fashion Doc¬ 
tor Ellis figured alongside her father like his 
shadow. 

As the hours crept on and Yekel did not come 
home, Doctor Ellis faded from Annie’s mind. She 
could think only of her father. She was alarmed 
about him. Where was he? Would he come 
home drunk? 

Elevated trains tore through the nocturnal 
quiet of Division Street, but Annie did not hear 
them, so hard was she straining to hear her 
father’s footsteps. And while she lay listening, 
she wondered if her father guessed her contri¬ 
tion, guessed how she longed to come over to him. 
She wanted her father, no one but her father; 
she wanted him with all her heart, all her soul. 


130 


THE LOVE CHILD 


She loved him, and him only. 

At the height of her emotion, Yekel’s heavy, 
slow step sounded. . . . Annie could tell he 

was sober. . . . How grateful she was! 

XL 

The next day was Saturday, and Annie slept 
soundly until nine o’clock. 

She was extremely disappointed to find it was 
raining, for she had dreamed that she and Libbie 
had approached her father about accompanying 
him to Seward Park to listen to the band con¬ 
cert, and that he had agreed with enthusiasm. 
Immediately after waking up she was taken with 
the resolution really to ask him; the next moment 
she had looked out of the window and met her 
disappointment. She confided her chagrin to 
Libbie. 

‘‘Maybe it’ll stop yet,” answered Libbie. 

Later it cleared up. When Yekel came home 
from work at midday the sun was shining. 

Libbie, glancing at her father’s gloomy face, 
whispered to Annie, “Yeh, catch him say ‘Yes’ 
if you ask him. He’ll tell you to go to hell, 
betcha.” 

Libbie’s crassness was chilling. Annie felt her 
courage slip away and disappear. The pleasant 
outcome of her dream-question lingered in her 
mind, and she had imagined herself saying quite 



THE LOVE CHILD 


131 


naturally, “Papa, can we go with you to Seward 
Park?” But now she felt self-conscious. 

Mira called the family to dinner. All but Yekel 
obeyed immediately. He puttered around a few 
minutes. At last he took his seat. Annie watched 
him as he ate in silence, his eyes persistently 
upon his plate. She watched the movements of 
his bloated, sagging cheeks, and his unsteady 
hand as he raised each mouthful; she watched 
him as he chewed, as he breathed, as the muscles 
around his eyes twitched. The more she watched 
him, the less courage she had. 

At last, in a desperate moment, when Yekel, 
having finished eating, rubbed the back of his 
hand over his greasy lips preparatory to rising, 
she thought, “I’ll say it now.” 

But the storm in her father’s eyes as he 
inadvertently raised them to hers checked her like 
a sudden slap over the mouth. How unhappy he 
looked! Veins she had never seen before stood 
out on his brow and on the back of his hands. 
The sight of them unnerved her. And she was 
conscious of Libbie’s eyes, with smiling triumph 
in them, upon her. 

Yekel rose and lumbered across the room, the 
inevitable garter trailing after him on the floor. 
It flashed upon Annie to tell him to fix his garter 
and so begin a conversation. After that she 
would say— 


132 


THE LOVE CHILD 


Yekel made the discovery of the trailing garter 
himself, bent and adjusted it. 

A void came into Annie’s heart. 

The triumph in Libbie’s eyes heightened, as the 
afternoon advanced. 

An intuitive sixth sense of Annie’s seemed to 
hover over her father with wings that sought 
somehow to shield him, as if from Libbie’s trium¬ 
phant smile. But she could not say: “Papa, can 
w r e go with you to Seward Park?” 

Something in Yekel’s eyes as Annie met them 
again and again finally broke through the obscur¬ 
ity in her mind and gave her full understanding. 
Her father was battling with his craving for 
drink. He was not a drunkard at heart; he had 
become a drunkard because his life was empty, 
because it held none of the things his nature 
needed; love, beauty, her father needed these. 
He had nothing. He was alone in the world; he 
did not even have anyone to speak to. . . . 

and she was alone too. Whom did she have— 
since Nina died? Her mind flitted to Doctor 
Ellis; a feeling of resentment toward him surged 
up in her. If it had not been for him , she and her 
father w 7 ould have been intimate friends by now; 
and, if that had been the case, her father would 
not now be struggling with the craving for drink. 
She knew it; he loved her. Out of love for her he 
had kept sober all through her illness. It was a 
mean shame, what Doctor Ellis had done—taken 


THE LOVE CHILD 


133 


her away from her father who needed her so, 
whom she needed. 

Yekel stirred, and Annie, in her abstraction, 
somehow imagined he was going out. All the 
world for a moment seemed an empty husk, and 
the next moment loomed up something alive and 
dangerous, in which one must tight. 

“Papa,” she blurted out, in a hurried, high 
voice, 4 ‘ Libbie and I want to go with you to Sew¬ 
ard Park. Will you take us?” 

Yekel glanced furtively at his love child. A 
sudden, almost simian old age seemed to cover his 
face, the muscles of which sagged under the 
weight of his astonishment. At last he faltered, 
“Yes,” scarcely audibly, “yes.” He hardly 
knew why he had said it, because he really wanted 
to be alone. 

Libbie ? s mouth opened. She stared. The 
smile of triumph left her face, but she felt glad. 

XLI 

The dictionary has it that a park is a piece of 
ground usually of considerable extent, set apart 
and maintained for public use in such a way as to 
afford pleasure to the eye as well as opportunity 
for open-air recreation. Seward Park ought to 
have a definition all its own. It is a piece of 
ground set aside, but it is grimy ground, and upon 
this grimy ground are set grimy stone and 


134 


THE LOVE CHILI) 


wooden benches. To afford pleasure to the eye? 
Its north wing smiles upon Hester Street, and its 
south upon East Broadway with its unsmiling 
intellectuals. On the west it is hounded by a line 
of old men, young men, grimy, smeared, bearded, 
hawking neckties, shoes, coats, hats. Dusty, 
dirty, mouldy clothing. Who in the world can 
want to buy these! From all sides comes a smell 
of sour pickles, herring and sweat. ... In 
the heart of the park, upon the grimy benches 
huddle men and women, bent, wrinkled, getting 
their “open-air recreation.’’ Politics, life, the 
Talmud, scientific and artistic ambitions for 
grandsons and granddaughters they discuss, 
these people, who have not known much beside 
pogroms, poverty, humiliation. . . . For stray 
cats and dogs that have in some way proven 
themselves nuisances Seward Park offers a se¬ 
cure refuge. And to a mother with a whooping- 
cough baby a grimy bench has not seldom been 
a blessing. 

On Saturday afternoons in summer, by the 
city’s benevolence, a brass band, in a pavilion 
for the purpose, makes music in Seward Park. 
Like ants out of holes crawl all kinds, all degrees 
of people to listen. 

The grimy ground exudes a sickishness. The 
heartless sun beats down a relentless heat. Cor¬ 
ners of bluish handkerchiefs go constantly over 
the face to mop away perspiration. Headaches 


THE LOVE CHILD 


135 


set in. But they stand on, these people, bent on 
hearing, learning. They keep score, hum, tap. 
A few years, and Seward Park graduates these 
to the top-most tiers of the Metropolitan Opera 
House. 

It was when the third number was being played, 
and after a silent walk to the park, that Yekel 
and Annie and Libbie arrived and settled on the 
fringe of the crowd. 

“This is called ‘Solveig’s Lied/ ” whispered 
Yekel, of his own accord. He was feeling glad 
now that the girls were with him. But there had 
been a struggle before he had found the courage 
to bring these words to his lips. And as if his 
courage had spent itself with those words, for the 
rest of the time he stood with his hands in his 
pockets, his forehead furrowed, his eyes nar¬ 
rowed, silent even during the intermission. At 
one point his gladness died out. He felt uncom¬ 
fortable in the strangeness of the situation. 
What did his children want of him? It was as 
if his gladness had fluttered its wings too strenu¬ 
ously and was tired. 

There was a limpness upon Annie that she could 
not overcome to make conversation. It was not 
until they w T ere walking back that she was able to 
say, “I liked the first piece the best. Hid 
you, papa?” What she liked in Solveig’s Lied 
was that sliding over from melancholy into mel¬ 
ancholy-kissed gladness, and she expressed it, 


136 


THE LOVE CHILD 


“Because it is gladness and sadness all at the 
same time, like life. Life mixes you up,” she 
added in a lower voice, reflectively. 

“And I liked Old Kentucky Home best because 
I knew it,” laughed Libbie. 

Yekel threw Annie a sidewise glance. His 
heart ached for her. “Will she let it mix her up, 
life!” he wondered moodily. Then with a sigh, 
thinking of Libbie, “She is her mother’s child, 
the better for her.” 

As if from a distance Yekel heard Annie’s 
voice, somewhat tremulous. “Papa, what— 
what is the story of Solveig’s Lied!” She was 
mustering all her courage, spurred on by a recol¬ 
lection of Libbie’s mocking smile. 

The question echoed hollowly in Yekel’s mind. 
He did not know the story of Solveig’s Lied. 
Chagrin seized on him. He would go to the li¬ 
brary, get a book on music and read up on 
it, he decided. But why hadn’t he done so be¬ 
fore? So ashamed did he feel of his ignorance 
before Annie that he forgot to answer her, and 
his silence threw her back into her timidity. 
They walked fully half a dozen blocks before cour¬ 
age to speak again rose in her heart. But this 
time she did not know what to say. 

She wondered whether she ought to repeat the 
unanswered question. Looking up at her father’s 
profile she could have sworn he was angry. Was 
it because she had asked him the question? Per- 


THE LOVE CHILD 


137 


haps it would be better not to ask it again, nor 
another. Perhaps he was thinking, and would 
still answer. 

Meanwhile they were close to home and Yekel 
was mumbling, “Run along, children, I’ll come 
later .’ 9 

Something of the feeling of a mother stabbed 
by fear for the child who unexpectedly disappears 
from her sight rushed upon Annie. She wanted 
her father to come up-stairs with them. She 
wanted to ask him to, but, glancing up, she caught 
his eyes, deep like thunder-clouds. She checked 
her impulse, abruptly turned her back. The act, 
slight, unmeaning, so utterly unintended to hurt, 
stabbed Yekel to the heart. Was she con¬ 
temptuous of her father because he was 
ignorant and could not answer questions, and 
was she going back, away from him, to someone 
else—Doctor Ellis—another, a more enlightened 
stranger? Jealousy again seized him. Now r Yekel 
wanted Annie. Passionate welcome to her ad¬ 
vances rose up in him. He would go to the 
library at once and look up the story of Solveig’s 
Lied. He would learn it and yet tell her; she would 
not need to be ashamed of her father for long. In 
fact fathers there were who even knew nothing 
about the existence of libraries. Yekel wanted to 
say one word to his daughter, but before he had 
a chance to speak she was inside the house. He 
stood for a moment, blankly staring after her, 



138 


THE LOVE CHILD 


then turned and walked heavily on, toward the 
library. 

XLII 

Some weeks before, a relative of Mira’s in the 
millinery business in Boston had sent on to her 
a strip of black buckram and some wire, and with 
it a sample copy of a thing called a “band” made 
out of these materials and used on ladies’ hats 
to raise them at the side, the front or the back, 
as fashion decreed. With the band had come a 
letter advising the Cohens to go into the same 
business in New York, the investment being slight 
and the opportunities great, the cost of manufac¬ 
turing a gross, labor excepted, being no more than 
seventy cents and the selling price often double. 
It had taken Mira some time to act upon the sug¬ 
gestion, but she had done so at last. An exciting 
moment it was when she had sold a few gross and 
had received an order for several gross more that 
the children were helping her make. The hushed 
awe that was Mira’s as she looked into a future 
golden on all sides through making bands! She 
said little but she knew it was God’s answer to 
her faith in Him. 

This Saturday afternoon she had no other 
thought than that the girls would devote them¬ 
selves with her to making bands—and then they 
walked out, and with their father to boot! She 
was so astonished she could say nothing. When 


THE LOVE CHILD 


139 


they had shut the door behind them, she stood 
and gasped until, the faculty of speech at last 
restored to her, “Vus,” she asked, as of the walls 
of the room-of-all-af¥airs, “is dus, zehr meshu - 
gas?” (What is this craze of theirs?) 

All at once it flashed upon her mind that her 
daughters were the invited guests of their father. 
Where? She made her guess at once: he must 
have taken them to the “Tlenta Garden’’ (Atlan¬ 
tic Garden). Of Atlantic Garden she had heard 
much and knew nothing, and she coveted the ex¬ 
perience of visiting it not a little. Women of 
the neighborhood, treated now and then to that 
pleasure by their husbands, had spoken of the 
wonders of it to her. She was stung by jeal¬ 
ousy, jealousy founded on more than the mere 
missing of the treat; her husband had chosen the 
children above her. She saw clearly in Yekel’s 
conduct to-day a resolution to reform, and, that 
being his resolution, she felt the bulk of the bene¬ 
fit should accrue to her. W 7 as she not his wife? 
She took mental stock of her various qualities, 
efficiency predominating, placed them in a row, 
argued her case and sighed martyrdom. She 
was not appreciated. Her husband could have 
gone around for a lifetime without finding an¬ 
other suited to him in his vagrancy (which would 
have thrown him and his family into an ocean, 
to drown, long ago). What had she not done to 
keep them above water! At home, who had really 


140 


THE LOVE CHILD 


run the business, he or she? He had puttered 
around, but she had done the work—the manag¬ 
ing, the planning. And here, who managed on 
Gussie’s paltry wages for all of them, he or she? 
And whose was the enthusiasm over the affair 
of the hat bands, hers or his? No, she had no 
luck. Not even the children had thought to sug¬ 
gest that he take their mother first. . . . She 

throbbed with a complex of emotions as her fin¬ 
gers flew deftly along the rim of buckram. 

And when the heart-sting of the present grew 
less sharp, Mira foraged into the past. What 
had her life been? As a girl she had had to de¬ 
vote herself to a large family of sisters and 
brothers, for her mother had been an invalid. 
Immediately after marriage had come children; 
one died, another came. It seemed to her, as 
she looked back now, that there never had been 
a time when she was not burying one child and 
pregnant with another. For whom had she borne 
these children? Did she even know the man? 
Never. From the time they were married he had 
conducted himself with her like a haughty stran¬ 
ger. Yet children she had had to bear him. For 
the first time she felt an injustice in her lot. 

It was at this point that the girls returned. 
Mira’s heart bounded at the sight of them. She 
gave no greeting. Libbie was the first to speak. 
44 Oh, mama,” she cried, in Yiddish, which she 
nearly always used with Mira or Gussie, “I forgot 


THE LOVE CHILD 


141 


all about the bands. I would rather have stayed 
home and helped you. It wasn’t nice. I didn’t 
like it.” 

Mira drew her lips tightly together. Her small 
blue eyes she kept riveted upon her flying fingers. 
A trick, she thought, to 44 whiten her eyes.” They 
would have to be sharper than that, she said to 
herself sarcastically, to keep her from knowing 
about their treat. 

44 Mama doesn’t know where we went,” ven¬ 
tured Annie whom her mother’s hurt, by a deli¬ 
cate intuition, reached at once, and who felt her 
head reel with a farrago of feeling that beset her 
heart. 

44 I don’t know where you went!” Mira raised 
her eyes and measured her daughter. 44 I do 
know.” The sentence popped like a cork. 

The girls looked at each other uncertainly, and 
instinctively felt the wisdom of making no an¬ 
swer. One went to one end of the room, the other 
to the other. Annie, stopping by the table to 
drop her hat, reflected, 44 Mama feels slighted.” 
She felt helplessly responsible and sorry. She 
threw her mother a sidewise glance. The im¬ 
pulse to go over and explain came to her, but she 
ignored it, thinking, 4 4 She would call our trying 
for papa crazy. She might even laugh. Papa 
is hopeless to her.” A feeling of impotence came 
over Annie. She gave her mother another glance, 
then she stood with head down, turning her hat 


142 


THE LOVE CHILD 


on one finger. She was being preyed on by mis¬ 
giving. Her chest felt a load of lead. Goodness, 
what was going to happen? All at once came 
the answer, “Papa might have gone away to get 
drunk.” She paused. Would he do it now when 
he must know that he meant everything in the 
world to her? Impossible. . . . But if he 

did—she drew herself up rigidly; not a trace of 
last night’s intuitive realization, of her sympathy, 
remained in her. She was thinking fiercely, “If 
he does it now, he will be no good. I—I will hate 
him.” Upon which broke Mira’s raucous voice: 

“Nu, really, it wouldn’t suit a high-tone father 
like yours to take a plain wife to the Tlenta Gar¬ 
den. His fancy daughters become him better 
alongside of his side.” And how it happened, 
Mira never knew, but she began to cry. 

Libbie rushed to her mother’s side. Annie, 
standing rooted by the table, thought dully: Would 
this be one stone more on the already too rough 
road? Was their mother going to make the hard¬ 
ship harder? 

Meanwhile, Libbie was offering her explana¬ 
tion. “Why, ma, we didn’t go to the Atlantic 
Garden; we went to Seward Park to hear the 
music. ’ ’ 

Mira shook her off angrily. 

“Nu, even if Seward Park?” she cried. “What 
is a mama, a floor rag, that you have to leave her 
home? Without your mama you would have had 


THE LOVE CHILD 


143 


a nice face in the world. Who worries and scur¬ 
ries for you if not your mama? A mama is cheap 
to you? You will see when you have no more 
mama, if she is cheap or not.” Her voice was 
lost in a vigorous blowing of the nose. 

Annie thought, “If he went away to get drunk, 
we have hurt her for nothing.” She wanted to 
go over to her mother and add her explanation, 
her sympathy, her tenderness, but she could not. 
It was as if she were sworn away to her father, 
as if she could not divide herself. 

All of a sudden Mira rose, wiped her eyes, 
grabbed up her shawl, and swept out of the house. 

XLIII 

As the door slammed after Mira, the girls ex¬ 
changed mute glances. Without speaking, Annie 
went into the parlor where she sank down upon 
the horsehair lounge. She sat, without thought, 
staring at a picture of an elephantine gentleman 
of a clean-shaven smile who, with feminine dainti¬ 
ness and masculine satisfaction was biting into 
a grass-green pickle. Irritated by the sight of 
the picture she at last turned her eyes away. 
She sat absently bitingher lower lip. i ‘ There would 
have been no use telling mama,” she thought at 
length, “even if we could have saved her feelings 
that way. We couldn’t have asked her to come 
along to-day. She will have to wait.” There 



144 


THE LOVE CHILD 


echoed in her mind: “Wait for when?” Then: 
“Suppose papa comes back drunk?” 

She rose from the lounge and sank limply into 
a chair. She dropped her head in her hands. 

‘ ‘ Oh, if he would only come home sober!” 

She burst into tears. 

XLIV 

When, an hour later, Yekel walked in straight 
on his feet, as if even the thought of drink were 
far remote from him, a hallowed feeling held 
Annie. She suddenly became very calm, like one 
sanctified, and a desire that her mother should 
come home so she could be kind to her and tender, 
came over her. Then joyousness, a nervous joy¬ 
ousness, a lightness came into her heart. It was 
easy to speak now. 

“Papa, you think you could play Solveig’s 
Lied?” she asked, a slight tremble in her voice. 
To the luster of her gray-blue eyes the flush of 
her cheeks somehow added mystery. She was 
beautiful, impenetrable for the moment. Yekel 
felt an exquisite pull from her. When Annie met 
his eyes she experienced a queer, sharp shock, 
which left a curious breathlessness of excitement 
in its wake. 

Pride glowed in Yekel. In his breast pocket 
was the story of Solveig’s Lied, all written out. 
Not only would he play, but he would tell her the 


THE LOVE CHILD 


145 


story. In the parlor, he could glance at his notes 
once more and make sure of the details, then, when 
she followed him in, as she probably would, he 
would remind her that she had asked him the 
story, and he, he would say, ‘ ‘ Do you want me to 
tell you now?” He saw Annie’s face light up 
with eagerness; he saw her hang upon his an¬ 
swer; he felt her pride in the father who knew 
the story of Solveig’s Lied. Meanwhile, he had 
not answered her question. 

A faint dampness came over Annie’s light 
spirits. From a momentary fear of losing them 
altogether, she determined to make her father 
answer. She repeated, 4 ‘Do you think, pa, you 
could play Solveig’s Lied? You play everything 
by ear, don’t you? Do you remember it?” Her 
heart beat. 

Yekel, roused to a realization of his remiss¬ 
ness, felt disgusted with himself. 

“Maybe I could,” he answered hoarsely, cough¬ 
ing. Upon the heels of this answ T er followed such 
self-consciousness that he simply could not bear 
Annie’s proximity. He left for the parlor, where 
he immediately picked up his violin. He sat a 
moment breathing asthmatically, then he drew the 
bow over the strings. He played without coher¬ 
ency, scarcely conscious of what he was playing, 
until he glided into Solveig’s Lied. He wanted 
to play it well. In his intense concentration, 
thought of all else dropped from him. He was 


146 THE LOVE CHILD 

immersed, oblivious, and Annie’s final coming 
into the room neither up-set nor pleased him. 
The final note left him feeling detached from the 
scene, remote. When Annie remarked, “How 
well you did it. It’s the first time you ever played 
it, too, isn’t it?” the words reached him as from 
a distance. He scarcely felt that Annie had ad¬ 
dressed herself to him. He made no answer. 

This time his silence provoked Annie. Why 
did he so persist in ignoring her advances? 

Yekel began to play the Traumerei. He played 
it a little too slowly, with too much feeling, like 
one touched by the melodrama of life. At one 
point, a fact in the story of Solveig’s Lied shot 
through his mind, and he struck a false note. 
After that he played badly, knew he was playing 
badly, and, at last, he quit. He looked round at 
Annie; their glances met. It was as if he were 
saying, “Well, you w r ere pursuing. Do your 
work. I’m ready for you.” And she, “I mean 
to overcome you. Why not capitulate?” They 
w 7 ere both calm, ready. 

Annie, from a lowered glance, saw a look of 
pain come into her father’s eyes, to be superseded 
by one of cynicism. A slight uneasiness, as if 
she sensed a feeling of condescension for her im¬ 
maturity, her audacity, came upon her. To keep 
her courage from ebbing away she argued in¬ 
wardly, “Well, he does not know how grown-up 
I am. ’ ’ * She would show him. She ^vould talk to 



THE LOVE CHILD 


147 


him of God, of human beings, of stories. She 
could. Had she not done so with Doctor Ellis ? 

She cleared her throat, straightened up. Her 
father shifted uneasily in his chair. He patted 
his left hand clumsily with his right. She did not 
speak until he was composed. Then she asked, 
“Papa, do you believe in God?” 

Yekel, surprised, looked up. Annie’s glance 
was calm with purpose. Yekel breathed a sigh. 
He felt his answer slow and clamorous within 
him. Finally he said, “No, my child, I don’t 
think I do.” 

Annie was gratified. “Neither do I,” she con¬ 
curred. 

Yekel experienced an odd electric shock, not at 
what she said nor how she looked, but that she, 
Annie, was at all. He had until that moment 
never really been able fully to realize that she 
existed; her nearness, her talking to him made 
her seem for the first time all real. Yekel’s self 
for a moment seemed to slip from his body and 
hover entranced within her. 

Across the narrow open space that divided the 
Cohen tenement from the adjoining one came the 
sound of a neighbor’s voice, singing. It hit into 
the room making a savage din in Yekel’s ears, 
while he strained for fear he should miss some¬ 
thing of what his daughter had to say. 

His straining attention gave his face that half 
human, half animal expression peculiar to heavy 






148 


THE LOVE CHILD 


drinkers, which, despite herself, stirred a slight 
repulsion in Annie. She seemed to see him more 
vividly than she ever had before, as if a strong 
light had suddenly been thrown upon him, and 
she involuntarily shrank from what she saw. He 
was dirty, bloated. He looked stupid. And be¬ 
cause Annie was endeavoring to achieve an un¬ 
accustomed closeness to him, she was the more 
repelled. She did not know how or why, but 
some very small spot in her heart that moment 
turned cold like ice. Yet it did not lessen her 
determination and purpose. She would bring 
her father into the family fold. In a moment 
she was quite herself again. He had made no 
comment on her answer. She meant to get it. 

“It’s funny we both think the same way,” she 
ventured, using the Yiddish. 

Yekel sighed and answered, also in Yiddish, 
4 ‘Not quite the same. At your age I was also 
sure. Now I am only pretty nearly sure.” 

“Then,” promptly replied Annie, “you have 
gone backwards.” 

Yekel was startled into a laugh. 

It was the first time Annie had heard him 
laugh, and it seemed to transform him. From a 
dirty, bloated creature, he turned into someone 
beautiful—like Prince Answer. 

A great love welled up in Annie’s heart for 
Yekel. She became so eager to proceed with their 

j 

talk that to avert possible interruption, she shot 


THE LOVE CHILD 


149 


up from her seat and closed the door. As if pro¬ 
pelled by her impulse, Yekel also rose and closed 
the window to shut out the neighbor ’s song. 
There was a little flushed, nervous pause after 
they were seated again, then Yekel said: 

“When did you decide all this about religion, 
my daughter V 9 

Actually he had spoken first! Annie was de¬ 
lighted. She leaned forward and said eagerly: 
‘ ‘ I thought it out when I was sick. ’ ’ She paused. 
“I used to think,” she resumed hastily, as if not 
to give herself time for a loss of courage, “that 
you were good to sit by me and watch me.” She 
was anxious to catch a glimpse of his expression 
so that she might discern how he was taking this 
statement of hers. Yekel was sitting with his 
head bowed and she couldn’t see his face. “You 
must have been so good to me,” she ventured, 
“because you care for me a lot.” 

Yekel glanced up sharply. Annie looked at 
him searchingly. A sarcastic smile seeming to 
flit across his face, undermined Annie’s courage. 
She braced herself; she had gotten so far, she told 
herself, she must go on to the end. She took up 
again the impersonal question of God. “God is 
too strict,” she said. Even if He loves you, He 
punishes you.” She felt her father’s eyes on her, 
but this time she could not look up to meet them. 
With a sudden resolve, she plunged to the heart 
of what was in her mind. “You were better than 


150 


THE LOVE CHILD 


God was to me. He stayed the same, I mean just 
like He is supposed to be, strict or whatever it is, 
and He punished me with typhoid fever. For a 
sin He punished me, I guess. But anyway you 
weren’t like that; you changed for me; you didn’t 
drink all that time, and you used to talk to mama, 
and me, and the children, and—and—everything. ’ ’ 
She broke off abruptly, overcome by sudden timid¬ 
ity. There was a moment’s pause. Then some¬ 
thing in Yekel’s eyes encouraged Annie to add 
simply: “I love you too,” and she assumed an 
attitude as much as to say, “You may think what 
you like of this, it is true.” 

The expression in Yekel’s eyes changed. Clearly 
he was thinking she was a hypocrite, demanding 
to know why she had turned away from him to 
the stranger, Doctor Ellis. Annie could scarcely 
extricate herself from the medley of emotions that 
struggled in her mind. She could think of no way 
to explain to her father the change that had taken 
place in her heart. Out of her mental turmoil 
emerged two convictions: her father must not 
say what was in his mind, and she must not let 
him. She said, suppressing her agitation: “I can’t 
see how if God loves us all like it savs in religion 

V O 

He does, He can let us suffer,—so much anyway. 
It’s terrible to be sick. And goodness, to die! Lit¬ 
tle Nina, she was such a—’’her voice broke; “such 
a darling little baby. How could He make her 
die! And make us suffer so about it. And He 



THE LOVE CHILD 


151 


gave me yet typhoid fever besides.” She was 
saying this, and what she really wanted to say 
was: “I found out Doctor Ellis, that he didn’t 
care for me at all. I found it out when he 
dropped me after I was better. He made believe 
he loved me when he didn’t. I know how you 
must have felt, papa, when you saw I was friend¬ 
lier with him than with you after you were so good 
tome.” . . . She said aloud: “ I don’t believe 

there is a God at all.” What she wanted to 
say was: “But you see, papa, I really didn’t know 
my own mind until the night when Joshua Levine 
ceme and I heard you talk. It was like a big 
light falling on you all of a sudden. You see I 
really am not a hyprocrite for talking to you like 
I do now.” Tears gathered to her eyes. It was 
a critical moment. Either her father’s heart had 
penetrated hers and he understood, or it hadn’t 
and he didn’t understand, and her quest was lost. 
She suffered as she waited for his response. 

The thought came suddenly into Yekel’s mind: 
“She loves me. She never really loved that Ellis 
doctor. It was only his fine manners and his fine 
clothes.” But he was looking down and Annie 
could not see his wistful expression. He said 
nothing. He began to fumble with a button on 
his coat. 

“I think God is awful,” concluded Annie, and 
she waited as though this were the throw upon 
which both their lives depended, for behind these 


152 


THE LOVE CHILD 


words lurked the thought: “I am through with 
Doctor Ellis. I want you.” 

* ‘ I think God is awful! ’ ’ 

Yekel hearing, had an odd sense of unfulfill¬ 
ment, as if he had gone round and round and 
gotten nowhere, for here was his child conjectur¬ 
ing about God in exactly the same way he had 
done when a youth. It struck him suddenly as 
ludicrous. He wanted terribly to laugh. But 
looking up, he caught Annie’s pathetically earn¬ 
est expression. Almost without his volition he 
bent forward to take her in his arms. 

Suddenly the shadow of a white, supple hand— 

Yekel stared. He drew himself up rigidly. A 
terrible pallor spread over his face. He brought 
his hand over his hallucinated eyes. “Oh, no,” 
he murmured, like one begging for mercy. 

Annie’s heart stood still. 

The door of the room-of-all-affairs slammed 
suddenly. Mira’s raucous voice: “Believe me, 
my Gussie, you can consider yourself lucky. 
There aren’t a million Joshuas looking for poor 
girls like you.” 

The white hand with its tumbler persisted be¬ 
fore Yekel’s vision, and Regina, it seemed, was 
crying passionately: “Papa, papa let’s talk again 
to-morrow.” 

A shiver went over his skin. 

Yekel drew back from a face dim, elusive as a 
breath, with alluring eyes of deep blue, now 


THE LOVE CHILD 


153 


turned to the tumbler in her hands, now raised to 
him. . . . Slowly she lifted the tumbler and 

pressed it against his lips. 

He flung his hand up to his mouth, swept Re¬ 
gina aside. 4 ‘No—I—won’t!” he hissed, staring 
Annie in the face. 

Clear as crystal came the realization of her fail¬ 
ure. Annie stood stark, then turned and fled. 

And with Annie fled from Yekel the vision of the 
tumbler, and the hand, and Regina’s face. 

Like a mound of ashes, he collapsed upon the 
horsehair lounge. The consciousness of his 
daughter’s misunderstanding beat like tired 
wings in his brain, but Yekel could not go to her 
and explain. He fell asleep on the lounge, where 
later Mira found him. 

“Let him sleep here to-night,” she whispered 
to Gussie, “he looks as though a regiment of sol¬ 
diers couldn’t wake him.” 

XLV 

Yekel awoke in the morning surprised to find 
himself on the lounge with all his clothes on, re¬ 
membering nothing. Then, in a flash, a recollec¬ 
tion of the explanation he owed his daughter came 
to him. He would go and talk to Annie at once. 
Under the urge of this ambition Yekel lost his 
habitual reserve. He rose with sprightliness, 
and wflth abundant vigor he brushed with his bare 


154 


THE LOVE CHILD 


hands his crumpled clothes. He took out a di¬ 
minutive comb from his breast pocket and combed 
his hair. While doing so he subconsciously lis¬ 
tened for sounds of wakefulness in the house, but 
he Wc too preoccupied to know whether or not 
he was hearing them. He felt anxious and hur¬ 
ried, and yet not a single definite phrase of the 
explanation he wanted to make was in his mind. 
He was concerned only with seizing the oppor¬ 
tunity. 

His hair combed, Yekel from force of habit 
looked under the lounge to assure himself of the 
safety of his violin. Then he was ready to go. 
Passing through the bedroom he dimly per¬ 
ceived that his wife was still in bed. Peaching 
the room-of-all-affairs, he saw that Gussie still 
lay asleep. He was surprised. Then, seeing 
Annie also asleep, he was utterly shocked. 
Automatically he took out his watch from his 
vest pocket. Disappointment racing through 
his heart, he stared at the watch for a 
moment unseeing, thinking not of the time 
but of Annie. At last he became sharply 
aware of the fact that it was only half past six 
o ’clock, and he remembered that Annie was never 
up before he left for work. Two emotions held 
him simultaneously: disappointment and relief; 
and then disappointment alone. He stood motion¬ 
less a moment wondering what to do, and then 
told himself he must be patient until evening; in 


THE LOVE CHILD 


155 


the evening his opportunity would come. He 
caught sight of the family towel lying on the hack 
of a chair and was reminded that he had to wash. 
He picked up the towel, went out into the public 
hall, washed at the public sink, dried himself and 
came back feeling a little less dull, and able to 
think more clearly. He thought on the pity of it 
that Annie was asleep, for she would spend a 
needlessly unhappy day. Occupied with the 
thought, he abstractedly sat down, unlaced his 
shoes and took them off. At once he woke up to 
what he had done, and hated himself for his stu¬ 
pidity. While he was putting his shoes on again 
he kept glancing up at Annie. Poor child, he 
thought, feeling bitter against himself. Even in 
her sleep she expressed unrest. He had grieved 
her. He had half a mind to wake her up. But 
Gussie would wake up too, and then, of course, 
it would be of no use to try and talk to Annie. 
He felt somehow impelled to gaze at Gussie, at 
her phlegmatic face, with the thick lips parted, 
and her red hair strewn all over the pillow. His 
thoughts flitted around her happiness in her en¬ 
gagement to Joshua Levine, and he hated her. He 
thought of Joshua Levine—the colossal self-con¬ 
fidence of him, the air of broad ownership he as¬ 
sumed toward Gussie and the home in spite of 
his short acquaintance, and he hated Joshua. 

His shoes at last on and fastened, Yekel rose 
to go. He hated the heavy sound of his feet upon 


156 


THE LOVE CHILD 


the rickety floor. Thoughts of Annie again flick¬ 
ered in his mind. But as he reached the street he 
was once more consumed by hatred which closed 
her out. He hated the disconcerting light after the 
dusk indoors. He hated the feel of his perspira¬ 
tion-dank clothes against his skin. He felt old 
and worn, set aside somewhere where black 
beetles crawled over and around him. And then 
suddenly the craving for drink sprang upon him. 
It grew stronger every moment. 

He must be master over himself, he declared. 
Now of all times he must have control over him¬ 
self. As if the craving were a thing separate 
from him, he walked faster to get away from it. 
Over and over again he told himself that now of 
all times he must have control over his weakness. 
But in spite of it the craving grew ever more in¬ 
tense. He was afraid to walk any farther, as if 
to do so were to go right into the clutches of dan¬ 
ger. He stopped short and raised a clenched fist 
and dug it into his cheek. “I must not get drunk 
now,” he thought, “I must not.” He paused. 
Annie’s face obtruded itself before his vision: “I 
give you my word of honor,” he said, and re¬ 
peated, “I give you my word of honor, Annie, 
that I will keep sober. I—I—won’t get drunk— 
Now, see if I do.” The words came with a little 
catch, for a lump in his throat. He wanted to 
cry. 

He resumed his walking with a lighter step. 


THE LOVE CHILD 


157 


His craving, like something tangible, and alive, 
seemed to follow him. He brushed it aside: 4 ‘I 
can’t,” he said, “I can’t do anything for you. I 
gave Annie my word of honor.” After that he 
kept on thinking: “I gave her my word of honor, 
my word of honor,” until, at last, he reached 
Feifa Teitelbaum’s shop. 

XL VI 

But of all that had passed in her father’s heart 
Annie knew nothing. After a restless night and 
the too-sound sleep of early morning, she woke 
up spiritually sick, and with a headache. In 
order not to betray what was wrong to Libbie 
who, she knew, would take the opportunity at 
once to wipe her hands of the whole undertaking, 
Annie assumed a little white, blank smile, until 
at last, on the pretext of having been asked by 
her teacher to be at school early, she made off 
alone, but not before having tucked in between 
her books a volume of fairy tales Doctor Ellis 
had given her. She had a feeling she would want 
to read during recess rather than speak to any 
of the girls, to whom she might betray her 
troubled spirit. 

Once on the street she hurried under the com¬ 
pelling force of the lie she had told, as if so to 
make a truth of it. 

She did not slow her steps until she faced Allen 


158 


THE LOVE CHILD 


Street School. Her instinctive volition was to 
hurry in, but somehow she did not. She stopped 
short and swept a glance over the age-worn, 
sickly exterior of the building. There was an air 
of decay about the deserted school that seemed to 
exude a bad odor. It made her headache worse. 
Somehow, very suddenly, she felt herself in a 
nervous tremble. It was not of her own volition 
that she turned and fled. 

Even as, all confused, she was fleeing, the 
thought, like a harrying wasp, buzzed upon the 
surface of her mind: “Only ten more days before 
graduation. I shouldn’t miss one of them. I 
shouldn’t miss one of them.” 

But it was of no use. She w T as divided into 
two selves, one of which paid no heed to the other. 

It was the two selves she brought to Brooklyn 
Bridge, one of which gratefully sank onto a bench 
and sighed relief. 

Presently the dual tune of the spirit merged. 
She reached a harmonious decision that what she 
had done was best; that nervous, tired and burn¬ 
ing with despair as she was, the day at school 
would be more wasted than here, for here she 
meant to think away the heartache, to think her¬ 
self back to mental balance. 

She relaxed and sank into a twilight of medita¬ 
tion. 

“He has no heart.” That was her first 
thought. 




THE LOVE CHILI) 


159 


From somewhere came a lapping echo. She 
listened. “He has no heart.” It was the water 
below, striking against the moss-covered buoys. 

It was as if, bored by its watery limits, the 
river was glad to pick up again a thread that 
linked it with earth. Annie could see it quite as 
an East Side matron, folding her hands in her 
lap, taking on an air of readiness for gossip. She 
turned her back as if to avoid the temptation to 
disloyalty and, feeling the water ’s inquisitive 
presence nevertheless, dismissed all thought of 
her father. “I must make up my mind what to 
do,” she thought, and paused as if she expected 
somebody to tell her what she must do. 

She stared into space, unthinking, dimly con¬ 
scious of the water’s maddening repetition, 
“Your father is a hopeless drunkard, your father 
is a hopeless drunkard.” 

A weariness came over her. Her spirit seemed 
to throw oil its struggle, and relax. She was 
being rowed away, it seemed to her, to a coast 
where silver clouds hung in the sky; being rowed 
farther and farther away. At one moment that 
melancholy that seizes travelers who, by nature, 
are home lovers, seized her. Everything was 
near its ending—everything she knew—all the 
universe. A lump rose in her throat as, in her 
mind, she bade her father farewell. As upon a 
flood she was carried to where fairy visions filled 
the air. Her hands fumbled unconsciously with 



160 


THE LOVE CHILD 


her books, and she drew one out and opened its 
pages. A voice reached her, at first not distinct 
in its identity, and then plainly that of Doctor 
Ellis: 

“The sun was just going down. The whole 
air looked red, as from fire. The forest was still 
and, sinking down upon his knees, Prince Answer 
sang the evening hymn, and then said to himself, 
‘I shall find her, sweet tired girl whom I am look¬ 
ing for. The sun can go down, night can come, 
dark night, but I shall find her. Before the sun 
sinks entirely behind the earth I will climb up 
there on the rocks which are about the height of 
the highest trees, and look down into the town 
below for a sight of the shabbiest shanty. There¬ 
in she lives, poor patient girl.’ 

“He laid hold of the tendrils and roots and 
climbed the w T et stones, bruising himself. Water 
snakes glided about, toads seemed to snap up at 
him, but he was not daunted. Indeed, he reached 
the top before sundown, as he had determined. 
Oh, what magnificence! For a swift second 
Prince Answer forgot his momentous errand, so 
absorbed was he in the beauty of the sun as it 
lay upon the horizon like a crimson altar. Song 
seemed afloat; the forest behind him sang; the 
sky above, where all sorts of glowing colors 
melted into one, seemed to sing a great anthem; 
his own heart sang. All of nature seemed to 
have turned itself into a vast, glorious church, 


THE LOVE CHILD 


161 


trees and clouds forming the pillars, grass and 
flowers the embroidered altar-cloth, and heaven 
itself the large dome. 

4 ‘ The red faded from the sky as at last the sun 
disappeared behind the horizon. Prince Answer 
spread out his arms toward the sky, when sud¬ 
denly his eyes fell upon the town below, upon a 
group of shabby shanties, and he remembered his 
dream-girl. A great love, which his sense of the 
beauty he had just encountered had only height¬ 
ened, came over him for her. He made his way 
down the mountain path faster than w^as safe, not 
stopping even for breath. At last, some distance 
down, he scanned as far as he could the village 
that lay awake below. He could see distinctly 
the red and green and gray housetops, with their 
chimneys. He thought he could make out the 
shabbiest one. He hurried. By the way he had 
chosen he arrived at the exact point he had noted. 
From inside the shabby shanty pitiful cries of 
pain reached him. He knocked. No answer, except 
hurried footsteps, fading away. And then moans 
were wafted out to him. He opened the door. 
Upon the floor, hurt and sick as it seemed, she lay 
in all her beauty! 

“Resplendent in his glittering armor, he knelt 
down beside her, humble and full of pity. 

“ ‘Beloved, beloved, come with me away from 
this I ? ” he implored. 

A truck stumbling noisily past brought Annie 


162 


THE LOVE CHILD 


rudely back from her dreamland to a realization 
that she had unconsciously read from the book of 
fairy tales a part of her favorite story. A medly 
of feelings held her a moment, and mit of them 
a loneliness for Doctor Ellis emerged, single and 
strong. Had he really forgotten all about her? 
As if to discipline herself, she deliberately turned 
her mind from Doctor Ellis to her father. There 
came back to her a memory of the pain of their 
parting. Her heart began to throb now with the 
same pain. The softest of spirits stole over her, as 
she experienced the odd sensation of her father 
merging with Doctor Ellis. Next, she became ob¬ 
livious of both. She relaxed luxuriously and 
gazed up at the sky where she seemed to see the 
sun lying upon the horizon like a crimson altar. 
City noises coming to her from all sides sounded 
like a chant. In the fleecy clouds she saw trees 
and lovely flowers and princes. Then these melted 
into one, and upon the horizon stood her Prince 
Answer. Doctor Ellis! Her heart jumped. She 
sat forward. But he seemed to change every mo¬ 
ment, to look quite strange now, and now quite 
himself again. Resplendent in his golden armor, 
Prince Answer—or was it really Doctor Ellis—was 
striding down a mountain path to Division Street, 
and you could see by the expression of his face 
that his mind was full of thoughts of saving her 
from that life. 

Another truck grinding by brought Annie back 


THE LOVE CHILD 


163 


to reality. What, she meditated, did “ beloved” 
mean, and what, “Prince Answer”! Did Prince 
Answer mean one’s husband! Yes, one’s hus¬ 
band—that’s what it meant. Would she have a 
husband some day! If she did, then she would 
have children—maybe boy children, too—for chil¬ 
dren were the result of marriage. Strange. How 
very strange. Silence fell, and she began to 
dream again. . . . Now the fleecy clouds were 

lovely fairy visions of little girls, some of them 
strikingly like Nina, dear little Nina; and others, 
boys, some resembling her papa, others Doctor 
Ellis, and others again her brother Benjamin, 
who had run away from home long, long ago. 
The several visions melted into one; once more 
only Prince Answer w T as there, this time with one 
hand upon his golden girdle, and one foot raised 
to step into a swan-shaped boat, white as snow. 
Suddenly an overwhelming desire to fly through 
the air up to him seized Annie, and grew more 
powerful as he moved away. 4 ‘Oh!” she gasped, 
rising up from her seat. Her books fell to the 
ground with a noisy thud, but she did not hear 
it. “Oh!” she cried again. . . . Fainter 
grew the vision of Prince Answer. ... In a 
wave of passionate longing for the beauty of him, 
Annie flung her hands upward: ‘ ‘ Take me along! 
Take me along!” she cried, just as he and the 
swan-boat disappeared under a gray cloud. 

Swiftly and sharply Annie’s mind was caught 


164 


THE LOVE CHILD 


again by the thought of Doctor Ellis. Prince 
Answer and he were one! She bent with fever¬ 
ish haste to pick up her books. She had to see 
Doctor Ellis. He had not forgotten her. He had 
not. It was all a mistake. She had no thought 
for her father. 

XL VII 

Yekel had reached the shop that morning to 
find the door closed. On this day of all days he 
was earlier than Peifa Teitelbaum, who was al¬ 
ways first to arrive, since he trusted no one with 
the key to the front door. 

Feifa Teitelbaum, when he came a moment 
later, evinced no pleasure, pain or surprise at 
Yekel’s early arrival. He let only a casual 
ii Good morning’’ break through the rigidity of 
his lips and then, unlocking the door, disappeared 
stiffly into a tiny anteroom. This cut Yekel to 
the quick. Feifa Teitelbaum should have made 
at least a pretext at conversation; should have 
said something about the weather if need be,— 
something. Though he was the boss and Yekel 
only the bastings puller, who in the world was 
Feifa that he so totally ignored another? Yekel’s 
heart swelled with dislike. 

Feifa Teitelbaum came out of the anteroom 
and, from half-raised eyes glanced at Yekel stand¬ 
ing idle. In spite of himself that fear that game 
feels before the hunter, or the mouse in the pres- 


THE LOVE CHILD 


165 


ence of the cat, came over Yekel. But be did not 
let it conquer him. Brusquely turning his back, 
he stood scratching his coat sleeve with the nail 
of his forefinger, in his heart brave defiance. 
Feifa’s dark look penetrated right through 
Yekel’s back, and he might as well have spoken 
the rebuke: “When once you are early you stand 
wasting time instead of setting right to work the 
way an honest person would. ,, 

Feifa coughed a cough that presaged vexa¬ 
tion. 

Yekel’s heart leaped. In another moment he 
was seating himself and searching around on the 
floor for the coat upon which to begin the day’s 
work. He could not disentangle it quickly from 
the others and soon he was coloring under 
Feifa’s glances. He had been the worker too 
long to be master of himself. 

At last Yekel found the coat, bent low his head, 
and began to pluck the white knots with all the 
agility at his command. His fingers trembled, 
for he recalled several instances when Feifa Tei- 
telbaum had actually discharged workers of long 
standing for no greater offence than his. His mind 
drifted on into thoughts about the future. Some 
day he would leave Feifa Teitelbaum. But much 
as he hated the work and the master, the idea of 
a change he hated more. He could not bear the 
thought of having to enter into contact with a 
wider circle than the one he already had grown 


166 


THE LOVE CHILD 


accustomed to. He was afraid of strange places, 
of strange faces, afraid. 

When Feifa appeared at his elbow to ask 
whether a certain job had been disposed of, Yekel 
humbly answered “Yes, sir.” The next moment 
he was burning with humiliation, with disgust for 
himself. “Sir? Should I have said 4 Sir’ to 
him?” He wanted to rise and spit in Feifa’s 
face to prove his courage. 

The arrival of other workers was a relief. It 
was as if the humiliation would now be divided 
with his fellows. He breathed more freely, and 
his eyes rose dumbly now to one, now to another 
of the arrivals as if to ask by what trick of fate 
he and they carried fear in their hearts. A con¬ 
fused compassion for his class entered Yekel’s 
heart. He was glad that there was only a ruling 
minority in the world for it left a decent majority. 
He saw bosses now as the stolid people, with 
closed hearts, with minds that grow angry, with 
murky souls. His fear, his hatred turned into 
calm contempt. He was glad he was not one of 
them. That thought somehow brought a vision 
of clean, pure Annie. 

Now let’s see, how would he begin? He would 
at supper—no, after supper—he would choose a 
moment when no one was within hearing; he 
would say, “Come into the front room, Annie. I 
have something to tell you.” 

When once he had said that she would know 


THE LOVE CHILD 


167 


he was willing to carry forward her plan of 
friendship between them. Or would it be safer 
to explain his queer answer of the night before? 
But how explain? No. He would not explain. 
He would ask her if she wanted to hear the story 
of Solveig’s Lied. 

And then he would tell her. 

XL VIII 

Annie knew that Doctor Ellis’ office was on 
East Eighty-Fifth Street, and she knew too that 
it was an enormous distance from Brooklyn 
Bridge. But that did not stay her determination 
to reach him. At first she ran, but soon she had 
to reduce her pace. By the time she had reached 
Fifty-Ninth Street she was so tired as to be spirit¬ 
less, and she decided to sit down and rest on a 
wooden box that happened to be standing behind 
the figure of a stone bear. She sat and sat, and 
thought and thought, and the longer she sat and 
the more she thought, the less keen she grew to 
visit Doctor Ellis, not out of a lesser desire to 
see him, but because of a greater uncertainty that 
he would be glad to see her. There was no deny¬ 
ing that if he had wanted to see her he would have 
come to her. 

At last, somewhat rested, and calmer, she re¬ 
solved first to walk over and see Normal College, 
where she was to attend after her graduation. 


168 


THE LOVE CHILD 


She would like to see the place, she argued. She 
rose and walked slowly on. 

Normal College stood bathed in a strangeness 
before which Annie stood and gasped. Green 
trees, grass, clean streets. It seemed to her the 
earth had shrunk from a cosmic pigsty to a fairy 
court, the unbelievable thing being that this was 
the same earth she knew. Here was no clatter, 
no tumult, no dirt. Here was a restfulness, a 
dignity, an elusive something that made you want 
to throw your chest out, breathe deeply, and that 
filled you with a sense of thanksgiving as if you 
were the recipient of some great bounty. She 
looked up and down the street. She walked to 
the corner, looked to the right, to the left. What 
was that beyond, that big stretch of green open¬ 
ness? A country? A forest? A park? Oh, yes, 
Central Park. Doctor Ellis lived near that park. 
He had told her so. All of a sudden an overwhelm¬ 
ing eagerness took hold of her to get inside the 
park, to explore its newness, to see it all, to feel 
it, to know it. She broke into a run, and when 
she had got into the park she stood and contem¬ 
plated it with amazement, the whole open coun¬ 
try, so inundated with the caressing radiance of 
the sun, so drowned in the delicate charm of the 
day’s serenity. Laurel was in blossom and 
formed a rose-tinted network against the back¬ 
ground of green and of shimmering water. Tears 
came to Annie’s eyes and her whole being grew 


THE LOVE CHILD 


169 


afire with a sensuous delight. She took deep 
breaths of air. She was transported with de¬ 
light, overwhelmed with wonder. She looked 
around and around and around. Following the 
curve of the water wound a row of maple trees. 
A fine mist hung suspended which the sun’s rays 
crossed and silvered. 

Not another person was in sight. By a sudden 
impulse she crossed over to the laurel blossoms 
and bent her face now against this branch, now 
against that, to feel the thrill of its caress. Then 
abruptly she bent forward, hastily tore off a 
handful of the petals, stuffed them into her mouth 
and chewed them eagerly. She was in an ecstasy 
of being alive, filled with tumultuous happiness, 
a kind of intoxication. “I—I don’t want papa,” 
she cried to herself. U I —I—want—Nina, little 
Nina. Beauty. Doctor Ellis. Prince Answer. 
I don’t want papa. I want Doctor Ellis.” 

And she rushed away. 

XLIX 

At last she reached the imposing brownstone 
house, with its face of creeping ivy and its 
patches of green lawn. She stood in front of it, 
undecided between two impulses. One was to 
hasten in, the other, for God’s sake to wait a 
moment—just one more moment. She strained to 
catch a glimpse of the interior. The curtains of 


170 


THE LOVE CHILD 


one window were parted. She could see a long 
narrow room, with a table in the center and books 
and magazines on it. Against the wall she could 
see the tops of heavy mahogany chairs. Oil 
paintings were on the walls. An interior as im¬ 
posing as the exterior. . . . Her courage al¬ 

most failed her. Suddenly she saw folding doors 
open in the adjoining room. And he came in. 
There was a long flat desk. He sat down and 
began to write. Sitting so, he looked like a man 
of stone, except for the side of his coat which 
flapped lightly from the movement of his arm as 
he wrote. Dear coat—how many times she had 
fumbled with the lapels of it while he had sat on 
the edge of her chair-bed. Yes, it was the same 
coat, light gray—no, the other had been darker. 
All of a sudden a great loneliness, a great 
desire to weep came over her. She sank down 
on the stone steps and put her face in her hands. 
Under her hands, before her eyes, her father, 
Prince Answer, Doctor Ellis, little Nina passed 
in slow succession, and before each her soul 
seemed to go down on its knees and beg for 
peace. 

At last she rose, mechanically. She did not 
know 7 how she managed to ascend the steps, her 
knees w T ere so shaky. 

The door opened. 

Annie’s heart stood still, and then began to 
beat terribly fast and to hurt her, for it w^as evi- 


THE LOVE CHILD 


I 


171 


dent Doctor Ellis did not recognize her. He did 
not know her. 

“Doctor—Doctor Ellis—” she faltered. 

“Yes, this is Doctor Ellis. ? ’ He was frowning, 
for it was after his consultation hours. He had 
caroused the night before, and was anxious to 
go home and take a little more sleep. 

< < j_> > 

“Are you in pain? It's after office hours,” he 
said in an unfriendly voice. 

“No—Doctor Ellis—you remember me? I—” 

The frown left the doctor’s face, and the prom¬ 
ise of a smile of recognition took its place. 

“Why, yes,” he hesitated, “yes, I do re¬ 
member. I know your face well enough, but I 
can’t just place you.” He opened the door 
wider. 

“I’m—I’m Annie Cohen.” 

Truth to tell, Doctor Ellis remembered the face 
better. He had visited many Cohens during his 
months of volunteer district work in the East 
Side. 

“I had the typhoid fever.” 

“Well!” Doctor Ellis remembered in a flash. 
He could scarcely believe the lovely vision of 
near-womanhood before him—she was lovely, 
despite the faded pink flowers on the shabby leg¬ 
horn hat, and the ill-fitting red cotton dress—was 
the same little girl whose little sister had been 
run over, and to whom he had once brought red 



172 


THE LOVE CHILD 


roses. There, now, he remembered quite dis¬ 
tinctly. 

Doctor Ellis smiled so broadly now he was quite 
his dear old self. And yet Annie felt herself 
held off from him as if by an invisible hand. It 
was with hesitating steps that she followed him 
into the house. Tears were exasperatingly close 
to her eyes. 

“And are you all well again V 9 inquired the 
doctor as he ushered her into his office. 

“Yes, but-” 

Doctor Ellis gave her a sharp glance of inquiry, 
and then there came to him a vague memory that 
something somewhere in her anatomy had not 
been quite to his satisfaction on his last visit— 
yes, a dull lung sound. He remembered it clearly. 

“Be seated, be seated/’ he said, as he took his 
own chair. A desire to finish a report he had 
begun and get home passed over the surface of 
his mind. He was busy a moment with the papers 
on his desk, and then he turned to her again. 

“You’ve certainly grown / 9 he commented, 
while his appraising eyes traveled over the lift 
of her budding breasts. 

Annie’s eyes followed his and, somehow, recol¬ 
lecting Libbie’s knowing glances, she lifted her 
dress at the waist so that it fell fuller over her 
breast. 

Doctor Ellis noted the movement. His quizzi¬ 
cal eyes searched more deeply into Annie’s, as 



THE LOVE CHILD 


173 


they were wont to do into the eyes of women, and 
Annie under their spell felt her heart heat fast. 
She felt herself blushing. 

Meanwhile, Doctor Ellis was thinking he would 
examine her. 

Without in the least intending to do so, Annie 
blurted out, “Oh, Doctor Ellis, do you really 
know me? I—I think you don’t know me 
at all.” The whole burden of her loneliness and 
disappointment found expression in that cry. 
She began to weep. 

Doctor Ellis came to a swift intuitive realiza¬ 
tion of what this visit meant to Annie. Tender¬ 
ness, a little heightened by the liquor still in his 
blood, was in his voice as he said, ‘ ‘ Oh, there now, 
well, I should say I do remember you.” Pater¬ 
nal feelings mingled with others in his heart 
as Doctor Ellis took Annie between his knees, 
removed the hat from her head, and with his 
own handkerchief wiped her eyes, and at last 
helped her unbutton her dress for examina¬ 
tion. 

While Annie, with strange quiverings, was 
mounting the examination table, feverishly bent 
on keeping the front of her dress over her breast, 
Doctor Ellis stood at the white porcelain basin 
washing his hands, thinking of the whiteness of 
her skin and saying: 

“Yes, I remember perfectly. I read you a 
fairy-tale once, that you liked very much, with a 


174 


THE LOVE CHILD 


Prince Answer in it. We used to talk, too. And 
let’s see—didn’t your father drink?” 

His words dinned in Annie’s ears. Automa¬ 
tically, in a choked voice, she answered “Yes,” 
and a queer feeling as if her father were on the 
table with her, held her for a moment, then dis¬ 
appeared. 

Was it Prince Answer or Doctor Ellis coming 
toward her! 

Doctor Ellis stood over her a moment, smiling. 
Then he took her hands, one at a time, and laid 
them ceremoniously to the right and left sides of 
her. “I won’t eat you,” he said, and lifting her 
dress from her breast smiled down into her face. 
Ridiculous as he knew it to be, he felt his eyes 
cloud with mist as he looked down into her pretty 
face. 

The promising beauty of the tender breasts of 
her! White and smooth and gently rounded. 
He laid his hand under her left breast to feel her 
heart which was beating fast under a confused 
shame coursing through her. 

Doctor Ellis said, “There, there now,” in a 
rather muffled voice, and very gently his hand 
went round and round over her breast. 

Some impelling force made Annie stiffen. She 
looked up at Doctor Ellis questioningly. 

“There, there now,” he repeated, and took 
away his hand and applied the stethoscope. Annie 
wondered what he was listening to so intently, 


THE LOVE CHILD 


175 


for it seemed to lier everything in her had gone 
absolutely silent. 

Abruptly Doctor Ellis lifted his stethoscope. 
One at a time he took the ear pieces from his 
ears. 

He pulled Annie’s clothes up. ‘ 4 Dress, ’ ’ he said, 
and went and sat down at his desk. 

Her hands unsteady, Annie stood dressing, the 
while she watched Doctor Ellis’ grave demeanor. 
All she could think of were Libbie’s smiles, Lib¬ 
bie’s words, Libbie’s manner, all seeming to give 
the lie to the wonderfulness of the Doctor Ellis 
she had known, and to make a liar of herself. 
Strangely, she felt her defence weaken within her 
now. 

Dressed, she went and stood uncertainly beside 
the doctor’s desk. He continued writing as he 
said, ‘ ‘ Sit down. ’ ’ 

She took her seat. 

He wrote and wrote. At last he put down his 
pen and looked up. He brought his arms up in a 
semicircle over his head and sat as if thinldng 
hard. For the first time Annie noticed that the 
brown bristles of his unshaven face were mixed 
with gray, and that there was gray flecking his 
brown hair. The old love for Doctor Ellis mingled 
with disappointment, rose in her again, for in 
some vague way he seemed to resemble her father. 
She felt a shrinking from him, as if at any mo- 


176 


THE LOVE CHILD 


ment Doctor Ellis might sit forward and hiss in 
her face, ‘‘I w T on’t.” She sat tense. 

“You’re fine and well,” Doctor Ellis said at 
last. “Lungs, heart, kidneys, all in tip-top 
shape. ’ ’ He smiled. There was in his smile now 
too much of the old Doctor Ellis for Annie’s 
heart to resist him. An overwhelming desire to 
entreat Doctor Ellis to wipe out the past few 
minutes—whatever they had been—came over 
her. She wanted to pull out the book of fairy¬ 
tales and beg him to read to her as he used to do. 
But she sat perfectly still and did nothing. 

Doctor Ellis sat a moment looking as if some¬ 
thing perplexed him greatly, then he said, “Come 
here. ’ ’ 

A terrible awareness of his presence sprang up 
in Annie. He seemed to grow very big as she 
falteringly approached him. 

He touched the stuff of her dress. “Red,” he 
said, “this hot day?” Annie hated the dress she. 
wore. Doctor Ellis’ comment brought shame 
surging up in her. But her shame for the dress 
was lost the next moment in the shame that arose 
from the fact that Doctor Ellis had begun to fon¬ 
dle her. He was stroking her neck, her bare 
arms. Then he kissed her. 

Something wondered mightily in Annie, as she 
stood feeling a stranger to herself, and yet per¬ 
fectly familiar to the situation. 

Then Doctor Ellis strained her to him. 


THE LOVE CHILD 


177 


Just as an involuntary fierce surge of revolt 
leaped up in Annie, he released her, saying in a 
most matter-of-fact tone, “Tell your mother you 
are very well. She needn’t worry about you.” 
It might have been an answer to a question. He 
added, rising and going to the white porcelain 
bowl again and beginning to wash his hands, 
“You may go now.” And, looking over his 
shoulder at her, “You can find your way to the 
door yourself, don’t you think?” 

Annie said weakly, “Yes.” She turned to go. 

“Good-by,” Doctor Ellis called after her cheer¬ 
ily* 

More weakly still, Annie answered, “Good- 
by.” 

She walked like an automaton through the 
waiting room—out into the vestibule—to the door. 
She opened the door automatically. 

Out on the street, directly in front of the house, 
a dispute between two men had attracted a small 
crowd. As Annie looked at the crowd, she had 
a queer sensation for a moment that they were 
all Libbies, all smiling knowingly, derisively. 
Their voices rising in a jumble of sound seemed 
to be directed against her in mockery. A hot 
flush of shame coursed through her. 

Out of sight of the crowd she began to exper¬ 
ience an odd feeling of confused identity. Had 
she really seen Doctor Ellis? Had he really not 
recognized her at all at first? Had she really 


178 


THE LOVE CHILD 


had typhoid fever, and at that time known a Doc¬ 
tor Ellis whom she had loved? Had she a father 
who had told her he would have none of her 
friendship? It all seemed to exist somewhere in 
mid-air instead of in her. Why were flushes of 
shame coursing through her? Why did she so 
dislike herself? Who was she? 

Her feet felt heavy. Something bore her down. 
The w T alk was endless—blocks and blocks and 
blocks. Yet some part of her was glad of the 
interminability of the walk, for the end of it was 
to bring Libbie, Libbie’s knowing smiles. Lib¬ 
bie’s voice was in Annie’s ears. “Dirty slob!” 
she heard her say. Was she really that? Doc¬ 
tor Ellis had kissed her; he had touched her here 

and here and here. Had he also- Annie’s 

heart stood still. 

She became confused. She hated Doctor Ellis, 
and dry sobs choked her. 

L 

The end of the day had found Yekel so attuned 
to an explanatory conversation with his daughter 
that to come home and find her away simply undid 
him. He felt the extremity of disappointment a 
child can feel, disappointment to the point of 
tears. In a little while the feeling abated. But 
he sat through supper nervously on the alert for 
her footsteps, for her voice if she should chance 



THE LOVE CHILD 


179 


to speak to somebody in the hall. At the same 
time he listened eagerly to surmises dropped at 
the table. Said Mira, “She maybe was sent up 
to colnedge by the teacher around.” Said Gus- 
sie, “Maybe to get introduced to the colnedge 
professors.” 

Immediately after supper Joshua arrived, and 
Yekel hastened off to the front room where he felt 
more at home. There he sank heavily into the 
horsehair lounge and, absently, from force of 
habit, groped under the lounge for the violin. 
Finding it, he drew it out and laid it on his lap. 
Then he relaxed. He dismissed the feeling of 
disappointment and inwardly again, as he had 
during the day, he enacted the scene to come. 
He would begin by telling Annie the story of 
Solveig’s Lied. No, he would begin by asking 
her in the most casual way to come in and spend 
a little time with him. He would do that to es¬ 
tablish an immediate doubt in her mind as to 
whether she had understood him aright the night 
before. When she was with him in the parlor, 
perhaps she herself would ask him if he had 
meant what he had said. And if she didn’t? 
He would then say—no, he wouldn’t. He would 
plunge immediately into the story of Solveig’s 
Lied. “You asked me the other day. You re¬ 
member ? ’ ’ 

Growing tired, he sat for a long time, idle and 
unthinking. Mira’s voice sounded. “God in 




180 


THE LOVE CHILE 


heaven, where is that girl?” Libbie’s voice, 
“The nasty thing. I betcha she could ‘a’ come 
home and tell you first where she’s going. She 
knows you worry, but you think she cares?” 
Joshua’s laugh, followed by, “A good daughter 
you have in your Libbie.” Answered Libbie, 
“No, honest, you don’t know that Annie. Think 
she cares that mama worries? Not she.” 

Said Joshua to Mira, “You’re coming with us 
anyway, aren’t you?” He and Gussie were go¬ 
ing to look at furniture and it had been agreed 
that Mira should go with them. Mira hesitated 
a moment. “Yes,” she said at last. “Libbie, 
you’ll give Annie her supper when she comes,” 
she added. Yekel heard Libbie snap out, “All 
right.” Then he heard the stirring of feet and 
the door closed. A silence of a few moments fol¬ 
lowed, then Libbie, who had a pretty soprano 
voice, began to sing “Home, Sweet Home.” 
Automatically Yekel picked up his violin and be¬ 
gan to accompany her. 

LI 

The East Side streets were miserably dim, the 
lamps throwing beams such a short distance as to 
be almost useless. Down each street one saw 
only dim spots of light starting out of the 
gloom. And such a din as came from the open 
windows! Annie crossed the street and turned 


THE LOVE CHILD 


181 


the corner into Division Street. On the corner 
was a woman’s coat shop, with “magnificent” 
blazoned in great letters above a scant collection 
of unpromising goods in the window, gathered to¬ 
gether like a tired family in its sickly abode. 
Annie passed the dully lighted shop and turned 
in at her own door. In a moment she was inside 
the hall, sniffing at the hot, odor-laden air. Walk¬ 
ing up the stairs, she heard her sister’s singing, 
her father’s accompaniment. Through her fag¬ 
ged brain coursed the thought, “Home, sweet 
home, this!” She opened the door. Libbie 
looked up at her quickly, and her song broke off. 
“Gee,” she cried, “you! I thought you’re dead 
already.” Annie did not answer. She took off 
her hat, while her glance gratefully took in the 
fact that her bed was already made up. How 
she wanted to lie down and go to sleep! 

“Mama was worried to death about you,” nag¬ 
ged Libbie. “Couldn’t you come first and say 
you’re gone away and won’t be back till late! 
Where were you, anyhow!” 

Annie frowned and remained silent. “Can’che 
talk!” Libbie flung indignantly. 

“Oh, let me alone,” cried Annie, and began to 
undress. 

“Mama left you supper,” barked Libbie, con¬ 
trition stirring in her. “Better eat it.” 

“I don’t want it.” 

“Maybe you ate already in the Waldorf- 


182 


THE LOVE CHILD 


Astoria as you’re gonna be a college lady,” said 
Libbie, laughing, hoping by facetiousness to win 
Annie over to eating for she knew her mother 
would be distressed were she to find Annie had 
not eaten. 

Annie continued to undress, making no re¬ 
sponse. 

There was a moment’s silence. 

i ‘Where were you?” repeated Libbie. 

Annie gave herself a shake as if to throw off 
Libbie’s nagging. A poignant sense of distaste 
for her sister rose up in her. “Listen, Libbie,” 
she said, “just leave me alone.” 

Libbie’s temper rose. “I wall not,” she 
snapped, “you got no right to worry us.” 

Just then Annie heard her father moving about 
in the parlor. A nervous trembling seized her. 
She was beset by a wild desire to avoid seeing 
him, meeting him. 

Libbie continued to nag, but Annie scarcely 
heard her, so preoccupied was she. At last she 
tumbled into her bed and relaxed. Out of no¬ 
where came to her thought of little Nina, and 
something in her seemed to congratulate the child 
now on her lucky escape. “It’s all, all rotten—” 
echoed hollowly in Annie’s tired mind, “all—all 
rotten. Living like this—a drunken father—a 
busy-body mother, a loud Joshua, a nagging 
Libbie. It’s all, all rotten. . . . Oh, God, I’m 
tired!” 


THE LOVE CHILD 


183 


LII 

Yekel had heard Annie come in and he had 
heard Libbie’s nagging. He had sat through it 
undecided as to what to do. The idea had some¬ 
how taken hold of him that ultimately Libbie 
would go out of the house to join the others who 
had gone. He had sat waiting. It had never 
occurred to him that Annie might go to bed. 
When a long silence followed, and the door had 
not closed on Libbie, Yekel began to wonder what 
was happening. At last he rose and came into the 
room-of-all-affairs. Annie was asleep. Un¬ 
prepared for such a contingency, he stood on 
the threshold, looking like one who has received 
a sudden slap in the face. He was dimly con¬ 
scious of footsteps and the voices of Mira, Gussie 
and Joshua. When the door-knob moved he 
turned abruptly, entered the bedroom and threw 
himself on the bed just as Joshua’s full-voiced 
‘ 4 Hallo!” echoed through the rooms. 

LIII 

Annie was awakened by Joshua’s voice from 
a queer dream that a cat had whisked its tail 
across her chest and made her breasts burn with 
the touch of fire. 

“Well, Annie,” sang out Joshua, “if you’re 
gonne be late on my wedding day like you was 


184 


THE LOVE CHILD 


to-night by sopper, yonr brudderinlaw’ll give you 
all ets komin’ to you, I shall say.” 

‘ 1 Where were you?” cried Mira. “I nagged 
them they should leave looking at the furniture 
for to-morrow, my heart pulled me so about you. 
How does one go away without saying first? You 
knew you would stay away so long? I was wor¬ 
ried to death.” 

Said Joshua with his never-failing facetious¬ 
ness, “Betclia she went to see a nice young feller 
with rosy cheeks—” 

xAnnie’s swift glance took in Gussie’s amused 
smile and her mother’s pleased one. She felt 
revolted, flushed self-consciously and kept pro- 
vokingly silent. 

Said her mother to Joshua, “ Instead of fool¬ 
ing, tell her better to say really where she was. 
Colnedge, school, perfessors aren’t worth worry¬ 
ing a mama for.” And: 4 ‘My God, she didn’t 
touch no eatings! ’ ’ 

“I told her she should eat, so she said ‘No,’ ” 
said Libbie, mimicking Annie, “I asked her where 
she was, she told me I should mind my own busi¬ 
ness. Let her alone, ma, she’s got the prouds.” 

Mira turned upon Annie. 11 Where were you ? ’ 9 
she asked, ultimatum in her tone, her arms 
akimbo. “A child of mine is not to stay away till 
night just like that. If you had to go somewhere, 
you should have come home first to tell me. A 
mama worries.” 


THE LOVE CHILD 


185 


“And what’s us, didn’t we worry?” cried Lib- 
bie. 

“And the children too,” added Mira. 

Said Joshua, laughing, “For Gawd’s sake,—” 
Joshua always spoke English and deplored the 
fact that Gussie and Mira didn’t—“give the girl 
a chench. One, two, three, you fall on her like 
soldiers with too much vodka. Esk her: Annie, 
where did you was? Where did you gone ? What 
did you did? How you know she won’t tell you? 
Ut, look at her face; she looks like she’s bustin’ to 
tell.” 

Mira dropped smiling, diffident eyes. She 
loved this bullying of Joshua’s. It was so mascu¬ 
line ; she had missed it in her life long enough to 
bend very willingly under it. 

Annie, too, had come to like Joshua somewhat, 
but to-night she felt an utter dislike of him. He 
seemed to have a thousand eyes that pierced 
her through; he seemed to be a thousand men with 
a voice that clanged through the house, and the 
house to be a wide and open world. She 
craved to be alone, to sleep. 

It took Gussie’s additional, “Annie, answer 
mama,” to break Annie’s sALf-control. 

“Please, won’t you please let me alone?” Annie 
cried disconsolately. “I want to sleep.” 

“Listen to her, listen to her, woe is me!” cried 
Mira, in real distress, “actually she won’t tell! 
From a mother she has already secrets! Colnedge 


186 


THE LOVE CHILD 


will make a fancy lady of her like the fiddle 
and whiskey made a fancy man of her father. 
Her father she is in bone and flesh.’’ 

“Oh, mama, please, please leave me alone!” 
All of a sudden a white rage seized Annie. She 
shot up straight upon her chair-bed. “If you 
want to know where I was, then I’ll tell you. I 
went to see Doctor Ellis.” And she sank back 
upon her pillow. 

In the bedroom Yekel, hearing, felt a thud as 
of the last shovel of earth upon the grave of his 
spirit. 

Libbie laughed a knowing “Ha! Ha!” 

Joshua said, “See, didn’t I told you she was 
bustin’ to tell out only you got to ask her? And 
a nice young man wid rosy cheeks it was. ’ ’ 

“So why didn’t you say right away?” said the 
appeased Mira, lapsing into English. “Makes a 
secret from natting. I taut maybe you went to 
colnedge and the professors they said sampting, 
and you recited or sampting.” All sorts of pri¬ 
vate conjectures Mira had, and there was some- 
thing in her nature which would not tolerate being 
excluded from knowing all. The neighbors had 
her nicknamed kucheleffel; she was the commun¬ 
ity gossip-ladle, gathering fragments of every¬ 
body’s affairs. 

“ KucheleffelV’ went bitterly through Annie’s 
mind. She could have jumped out of the window 
away from all this. The next moment she 


THE LOVE CHILD 


187 


was choking with tears. She thought of her 
father; an understanding of his isolation came 
to her; her mother had tried to force his hidden 
self, as it were, into the open for everybody’s view, 
and he had retreated more and more until he had 
found complete security in dumbness and utter 
aloofness. She was filled with sympathy for him, 
and something like envy. Her mind with a bird’s 
suddenness of flight, flitted to Central Park, the 
laurel blossoms, the shimmering water, the green 
grass, the trees. It all seemed far, far away, a 
distant experience, not quite true. But more 
real seemed Doctor Ellis, who hadn’t remem¬ 
bered her, Doctor Ellis to whom she had almost 
felt impelled to say “Don’t” for something that 
had made chills and flushes of shame shoot 
through her. Real were Libbie’s knowing glances, 
her smiles; real was her busy-body mother, the 
facetious Joshua, real was all ugliness. “Oh, 
God,” Annie moaned softly, burying her head in 
the pillow. “I—I—want something else—” And 
then, “But I don’t believe in God. I don’t.” 
Her lips were tight set, and she felt a deep silence 
within herself. 

LIY 

After she fell asleep Annie dreamed again the 
queer dream about the cat whisking its tail across 
her chest, searing her breasts, and this time she 
woke up with the pain of it. But awake, she 


188 


THE LOVE CHILD 


found the pain to be in her abdomen. It was the 
middle of the night; everybody was asleep. 

Within a minute the pain had heightened until 
she could not bear it. She was puzzled by it, it 
was such a subtle pain, so meaningful yet unfa¬ 
thomable. She moaned and writhed with it. And 
then it grew so terrible she felt danger in it. 
Without her volition she leaped off the bed and in 
her panic she thought of calling her mother. 
On the way to the bedroom she had an impulse 
to wake Gussie, but she remembered that Gussie 
had to rise early in the morning to go to work. 
She vaguely realized that to wake her mother 
would also rouse her father, but by this time she 
was in too much pain to care. The cry , i ‘ Mama! ’’ 
almost escaped her, when subdued whisperings 
reached her from the bedroom, and stopped her 
short. 

“With that dirt I’m through,” she heard her 
mother’s voice. “I tell you never, Yekel, never 
again. I’ve had children enough for you.” 

The pain shot like a knife blade through Annie. 
A vengeance pain, a punishment pain it was. 
The top of her head burned. 

The sound of her father’s heavy breathing 
reached her, as if he were inhumanly excited. 

“Never,” came in a louder whisper from her 
mother. “If you try—if you dare—I’ll—I’ll run 
out to the girls.” 

The bed seemed to groan mockingly. 


THE LOVE CHILD 


189 


Chills and flushes of shame made the perspira¬ 
tion break out over Annie. 

The pain dug more sharply. It stabbed through 
her and seemed to open her mind. “They’re— 
they’re married!” she heard a voice in her. She 
had a swift comprehensive flash of understanding. 
She turned and fled back to her bed. 

In a moment she saw her mother whip like a 
raggedly garbed ghost into the room and curl 
up at the foot of Gussie’s cot. 

Under the tenseness of her emotions, Annie’s 
pain lessened. She crushed in against the pillow 
as if to hide from her mother’s sight. 

LV 

In the morning, Annie was startled out of a 
heavy sleep by a sudden flash of something 
strange happening to her. Making her discovery, 
she was seized with a terrible fright. 

“I’m dying! I’m dying!” she thought ago¬ 
nizingly, and called to her mother. 

“It’s nothing, nu, nothing. Be still about it,” 
Mira whispered, cautiously looking about her. 
She planked a stiff slap upon each of the bewil¬ 
dered Amiie’s cheeks, and in a laughing whisper, 
added: “Now you will always have a rosy face.” 

A glow of pride in the girl’s innocence suffused 
the mother’s heart. 


BOOK FOUR 


/ 


LVI 


NNIE felt strangely weak—not at all as she 



had felt under the typhoid fever. The pre¬ 


sent state brought with it a sense of calm instead 
of unrest; and the sense of calm seemed to be born 
of an involuntary resignation, and the resigna¬ 
tion to be one with something inexplicably deep. 

In this condition Annie, lying on her chair-bed, 
was unaffected by the gross ugliness of the room- 
of-all-affairs and the dinning of her mother ’s and 
sisters ’ voices as they discussed the merits of 
various kinds of furniture. 

“Uh, honest, Gus, are you gonne be married 
in two weeks f” broke in Libbie. 

Married! Annie turned eyes, in which shone 
an unconsciously maternal light, upon Gussie. 
“Poor Gussie,’’ she reflected. It was as if she, 
Annie, had some amazing knowledge by which 
Gussie had yet to come. Annie sighed. 

“In two weeks, really, in two weeks,’’ laughed 
Mira. 

Annie saw Gussie blush and drop her eyes, and 
there came over her the same feeling of shame 
she had experienced in Doctor Ellis’ office. 


19a 


THE LOVE CHILD 


191 


“Annie,’’ said Mira, “don’t yon think like 
your mother that a bird’s eye maple dresser is 
beautiful?” Several times now, to Annie’s annoy¬ 
ance, Mira had brought her into the discussion 
this way. Annie’s eyelids dropped several times 
in quick succession. For the world she could not 
look her mother in the face, and while she 
answered “I don’t know,” she marveled at Mira’s 
lack of sensitiveness. It seemed to her that her 
mother ought to know by intuition what she, 
Annie, had witnessed in the night. But she was 
glad, just the same, that her mother did not know 
it. Once or twice, from her father’s manner, it 
had seemed to Annie that he had guessed. Her 
heart had shrunk with aversion. 

While Mira expatiated upon the merits of 
bird’s eye maple, Annie closed her eyes. Through 
her mind, like a scroll of lighted pictures, 
passed all that had happened the day before— 
Brooklyn Bridge, the lapping water, the moss- 
covered buoys; towering trees, laurel blossoms, 
the sun like a golden altar. Then Doctor Ellis. 
She gave a start. Her mind was so clearly alive 
to the meaning of his conduct now that she 
wondered how she could have been so unaware 
only the day before. At one moment she saw her 
father as one and the same with Doctor Ellis, 
carrying Doctor Ellis’ attempt farther. A fiery 
sense of shame burned in her so that she broke 
out in perspiration. This left her so weak it 



192 


THE LOVE CHILD 


seemed impossible to her that she could ever feel 
strong again. In her weakness that mysterious 
calm, springing as from a resignation abysmal 
and inevitable, came to her. In that mood she 
began to dream of Prince Answer. Little by lit¬ 
tle a feeling of such softness rose up in her that 
it brought the tears to her eyes. Prince Answer! 
She sank deeper into her chair-bed and relaxed 
more fully. It was as if she were abandoning her¬ 
self to the protection of Prince Answer. Waves 
of elation passed over her that seemed to lift her 
farther and farther away from the room-of-all- 
atfairs, from Doctor Ellis, from her father, her 
mother. . . . Only Gussie was coming along 

with her. And for Gussie she felt infinite love, 
infinite tenderness, a closeness that made her 
heart ache. 

Joshua’s stormy arrival pulled Annie up out 
of her dreams. 

LYII 

It was not because Yekel guessed Annie’s 
knowledge of his secret that his heart held no 
feeling for her to-day, that he had no desire to tell 
her the story of Solveig’s Lied. It was because 
he so loathed himself. He felt bereft of all man¬ 
hood, knocked under by forces for which he had 
contempt. His bearing about the house was 
a pitiful mixture of timidity and boldness. 
Strangely he was less silent than usual, talking 


THE LOVE CHILD 


193 


in a hoarse voice. But he did not inquire into 
Annie’s indisposition. A strange coldness and 
indifference was upon him. He thought of nothing 
dear to him, not even of his fiddle. He was 
anxious for dinner to he served so that he could 
get out of the house, away somewhere, anywhere. 
Joshua’s arrival only heightened his eagerness 
to escape. Joshua annoyed Yekel terribly. 
Had it not been Sunday, with all bars closed, 
Yekel would, without a second thought, have 
gone off to drown his despair in whiskey. 

At last dinner was served and over. Yekel 
made a hasty departure. 

Out on the street he walked aimlessly for a 
while, then he turned into the Bowery. Every 
saloon he passed tortured him with its closed 
doors. 

A street-car marked ‘‘ Fort George” gave him 
an inspiration upon which he acted impulsively. 
Seated in the car, he thought, “The sight of 
green grass and open country! How good it will 
be!” No other thought stirred in his mind. 

At Fort George he found a place near run¬ 
ning water. He lay down on the grass beside it. 
The sun, near setting, hung low in a cloudless 
sky. Everything was defined and glorified in a 
rosy light. It seemed to Yekel he had never seen 
such an expanse of sky. He could see the woods 
and stretches of grass and the silvery curves of 
the water, far away to where the rim of the land 


194 


THE LOVE CHILD 


encroached upon the mauve and rose-tinted heav¬ 
ens. He was keeping thought and feeling con¬ 
sciously away. But at last overmastering sadness 
seized him. His heart grew so heavy he could 
feel the weight of it. The scene swam before his 
eyes. The sun seemed to throw off violets, roses, 
leaves, a multitude of them which disappeared 
with lightning rapidity, and were succeeded by 
others of different shape. He covered his face 
with his hands and burst into tears which ceased 
abruptly, leaving something tugging at his heart¬ 
strings. He felt a need to have done with life, 
with the struggle. The water moving smoothly 
onward seemed to carry his desire along with it 
as he gazed at its slowly changing surface. The 
wind, as it rippled over the grass, seemed to 
greet him and to invite him to the land where it 
was bound. Ah, yes, thought Yekel, he was tired, 
weary, he wanted to go. He was sick, sick of all 
the pain that moved under the sunshine, of the 
deftness and swiftness with which life murdered 
ideals. He felt himself for a brief moment caught 
up and lifted into a dusk beyond the heavens. 
He was himself, in a formless pre-existence, 
stretching out his hands lovingly toward many- 
colored, many-sounding life. He had been 
designed full of eagerness and passion; craving 
knowledge, experience, yearning for growth; per¬ 
haps he could have been satisfied with the whole 
variegated world. But life had used her iron rod 


THE LOVE CHILD 


195 


to pound him flat. He was tired. He was sick. 
He wanted nothing, nobody, only to drop away 
into sleep. 

LVIII 

Gussie’s wedding day drew near. Under her 
glad exterior lay a shrinking from the future, a 
fear of Joshua Levine. Nor was Joshua Levine 
himself quite so certain of the life into which he 
was stepping as it appeared from his exhibitions 
of exuberance. To an observant person the mean¬ 
ing of his occasional lapses into red-faced medita¬ 
tion would have been clear. But nobody guessed 
—certainly not Mira, who was feeling a satisfac¬ 
tion more complete than she had ever felt before. 

With her denial of herself to Yekel something 
new had been born in Mira. It was as if the 
experience had lifted her out of a negative state 
into that of ruler of a domain. She felt younger 
in her new importance. The world seemed to her 
complete and perfect now that she was definitely 
in it. 

With a daughter who had just stepped into the 
realm of womanhood, with another soon to be 
married, with a husband who desired her, Mira 
was happy. 

LIZ 

Joshua Levine had agreed to marry Gussie 
*‘as she stood and went,” and he had lived up to 


196 


THE LOVE CHILD 


the bargain. He paid for everything, for her 
trousseau, for the furnishing of the home, and in 
a burst of generosity had even increased to fifty 
dollars the thirty-five intended for the wedding 
itself. 

‘ i Don’t stint,” he said to Mira, “get plenty 
and the best quality things to eat. ’’ He was look¬ 
ing a little thinner and taller these days, and an 
excited flush was almost constantly over his face, 
while his bespectacled eyes had a scarlet rim 
around them. Every once in a while, no matter 
who was present, he caught Gussie abruptly and 
clumsily into his arms and strained her to him 
while he planked wet kisses on her lips or, if she 
denied him these, on her face, neck, arms. 

Never did this occur but a feeling of infinite 
sympathy went out from Annie to her sister. 
She felt like snatching her away from him. 
Unable to do so, she was tender with Gussie as 
she had never been before. No one in the Cohen 
family had been known to call another “dear” 
but now Annie often addressed Gussie thus, quite 
naturally. 

One night in the dark, when Gussie was in her 
cot-bed and Annie in her chair-bed, Annie 
whispered: 

“Gussie, are you happy?” 

Gussie hesitated. In the dark her fatalistic 
shrug was hidden from Annie. Phlegmatically, 
in her soft voice, she answered, “Yes, why not?” 



THE LOVE CHILD 


197 


The answer was a shock to Annie, who felt in it 
a complete contradiction of what her intuition 
had been telling her,—that Gussie was shrinking 
fearfully from what she faced, and in advance 
was ashamed of the demands Joshua would make 
upon her once they were married. It was to 
encourage confidences that Annie had put the 
question. And now Annie felt struck dumb. She 
could not utter another word. She turned her 
back and went to sleep. 

Automatically, after this, Annie’s sympathy 
for Gussie fell away; what need had Gussie of 
sympathy if she were happy? 

But Annie remained gentle and kind toward 
Gussie; she seemed to have no control over this. 
She found herself undertaking a hundred things 
to spare Gussie effort, in spite of herself. And 
as if she knew her enthusiasm was a kindness, she 
was as much excited as the others about the 
wedding arrangements, the trousseau, the veil, 
the wedding dress and all the other details con¬ 
nected with the event. 

Yekel, watching Annie, wondered. Annie, 
catching his occasional glance, felt herself shrink¬ 
ing. She marveled with something like contempt 
at his indifference, and was perversely glad of 
the dislike for him it inspired in her. It was as 
if she were getting revenge for the suffering he 
had caused her. “How can he be so cold about 
his own child’s marriage?” she asked herself, 


198 


THE LOVE CHILE 


and liis ugly secret would rise up in her mind 
and bring with it a wave of dislike for him. 
She hated him and she was glad she hated him. 
It gave her a new sense of freedom, a strength. 
In this new freedom she went out to the rest of 
the family with something like hysterical buoy¬ 
ancy. She was almost gay at times. 

LX 

It was a wee before the wedding. Eabbi 
Fishbein, his fa ■ written over with innumer¬ 
able wrinkles, c; ie to pay his respects to the 
bride’s family, incidentally hoping that Mira’s 
pleasure in the son-in-law he had procured for 
her might find expression in a gift of money. 

Said Rabbi Fishbein to Joshua with great 
deliberation, in the presence of all the family but 
Yekel, “ Hearken, my son, I have brought you 
into a fine Jewish family. In the immediate- 
family is a daughter soon to go to college; back 
in the family was a doctor; the mother’s father 
is even a rabbi. See that you prove yourself 
worthy. ’ ’ 

While the Rabbi stopped to make staccato 
noises in his bandanna handkerchief, Mira and 
Gussie wiped their eyes of tears of appreciation. 

The Rabbi continued ceremoniously, ‘‘ Never 
in the family was there the stain of ordinariness; 
in this family there are no shoemakers or tailors; 


THE LOVE CHILD 


199 


no.” Again the Rabbi made staccato noises in 
his handkerchief. Libbie caught the glance of 
Annie, sitting in a far corner over a book, and 
they exchanged a smile. 

The Rabbi added, “Now, the father for the 
most part is a silent man, and it would seem he 
knows nothing, but it is not so.” He paused for 
dramatic effect. “You have only to watch the 
expression in his eyes to know that he is some¬ 
thing much more than is apparent, a poet, a 
soul.” Rabbi Fishbein had heard all this from 
Mira. 

Annie’s heart bounded. She pictured her 
father at that moment alone in the dark front 
room, staring somewhere into space. She had an 
impulse to fly to him, and the next moment 
despised herself for the impulse. He did not 
want her; he was no good; a drunkard, a bru— 
She was held up by a sparkling look of apprecia¬ 
tion in her mother’s eyes. 

“A poet indeed,” repeated Mira in a low voice, 
her eyes, with a reflective look in them, plunged 
somewhere into Rabbi Fishbein’s meager breast. 

“Am I mistaken?” Annie wondered. But the 
next moment she saw her father’s face as he 
hissed “I won’t,” into hers. All was settled for 
her again. He did not want her. She did not 
want him. She remembered the night of low 
whisperings. She felt sick. She hated Yekel. 

Said Joshua in Yiddish, with impressive slow- 


200 


THE LOVE CHILD 


ness, his eyes averted, “You have done well by 
me, Rabbi. I am grateful and I will try to prove 
myself worthy. I am getting a nice girl and com¬ 
ing into a nice family and, being an orphan myself 
and having had enough of hall bedroomlets and 
missuses, I will be an appreciative husband.’’ 
He bent forward and shook hands with the Rabbi. 

That was settled. Rabbi Fishbein coughed. 
In quite another voice, an easier, lighter voice, 
he said, turning to Gussie, “Bride, are all the 
arrangements for the wedding made?” 

“Oh, sure,” said Gussie softly, blushing. 

“Of course,” echoed Mira. 

Annie felt impelled to rise and come forward 
to join the group. Rabbi Fishbein, watching her 
as she approached, said, “That’s what I like to 
see, that the Americaner children don’t become 
too stuck up to be one with the rest of the family. 
Are you interested in your sister’s marriage?” 

“Yes, I am,” replied Annie, seating herself 
next to Gussie. “And in Joshua’s, too.” She 
smiled. Everyone else smiled. 

“A bright one,” said the Rabbi, eyeing Annie’s 
comeliness. “A pretty one,” he added, “very 
pretty.” 

“Don’t make her conceited,” giggled Libbie.- 

Joshua turned to Libbie, a broad smile on his 
face. He sat forward, slapped his knee with his 
hand. “You, kit, better kom here too,” he said. 
As Libbie did not move, he rose, went and got 


THE LOVE CHILD 


201 


her, and placed her on his knee. He bit her cheek. 
“Sweet kit,” he said, a confused embarrassment 
upon him. 

“Better bite your own bride,” said Libbie. 

The Babbi and Joshua exchanged knowing 
glances and smiled. The women, Annie too, 
dropped their eyes. Libbie slapped Joshua’s 
cheek. “Le’ me go,” she cried, petulantly. 

“Oh, Libbie,” said Annie, “Don’t be so—” 

“I will not stay on his lap,” cried Libbie 
angrily, struggling to free herself. She was so 
self-conscious she filled everyone else with self- 
consciousness. Joshua released her. A moment’s 
silence followed. 

Babbi Fishbein: “Where will you hold the 
wedding!” He addressed no one in particular. 

Annie cried eagerly in Yiddish, “Oh, Babbi, I 
kept urging them to take a hall but Gussie insisted 
the shop she works in is good enough. Do you 
think it’s good enough! You get married only 
once; don’t you think it ought to be a pretty 
affair ! A shop is an ugly place. I think it should 
have been a real hall, don’t you! It wouldn’t 
have cost so much.” There had been long discus¬ 
sions on the subject and in the end Gussie had 
decided with Mira on the shop, the proprietor 
having offered the use of it free. 

Babbi Fishbein w r as immensely gratified wfith 
this additional show of genuine interest from the 
new generation. He circled the room with a con- 


202 


THE LOVE CHILD 


gratulatory glance. “You’re a good girl, ” he said 
impressively. 44 I’m proud of your interest. A 
hall would have been nice; still it isn’t the wed¬ 
ding that’s important, but the life afterwards.” 

Annie’s face clouded over with childlike per¬ 
plexity. “The wedding—” she found herself 
formulating her objections, a thing she had not 
done before, “is the start into the wedded life. 
Why shouldn’t beauty—” 

She caught sight of her father, come to get a 
drink of water, on the threshold. Their eyes 
met. The words froze on her tongue. In a frac¬ 
tion of a second a wave of antagonism spurred 
her on to finish the sentence. She turned 
an eager face upon her auditors and, keenly 
conscious of her father as he lumbered about 
the room, continued w T ith suppressed excitement, 
“Why shouldn’t beauty be in the beginning, 
instead of ugliness? Making a match is ugly, 
then you follow it up with an ugly wedding. 
Bird’s eye maple furniture is ugly. An ugly 
house, ugly—” She was caught up abruptly by a 
look of pain in Gussie’s eyes. She stopped short, 
realizing her indiscretion. It seemed to her the 
words had come from her against her will. A 
trembling contrition held her. She laughed a 
hysterical laugh, jumped up from her chair, flew 
to Gussie’s side, threw her arms about her. “I 
was fooling,” she said gently, almost in tears. 
“I just wanted to fool like that. You’ll have a 


THE LOVE CHILD 


203 


nice wedding with the good things mama’ll make 
to eat, and the white table-cloths. And bird’s eye 
maple is nice furniture. I was fooling.” Another 
short hysterical laugh broke from her. Again 
she caught her father’s brooding eye. It was he 
who had impelled her to speak those stinging 
words of criticism, she felt. She stiffened 
against him. She caught Gussie around the 
shoulders. “You know I was fooling, don’t 
you?” she asked with feverish eagerness. 

“Nu, we all know. Don’t make such a fuss,” 
cried Mira, annoyed, for she had not paid enough 
attention to what Annie had said to be much 
affected by it, nor had anyone else. 

Annie bent to kiss Gussie and strangely, as she 
did so, she felt her father’s face obtrude itself. 
She kissed Gussie with involuntary passion and 
then a muddle of emotions held her. 

Rabbi Fishbein rose to go, just as Yekel passed 
to go back into the parlor. Annie suddenly 
became quite clear in her mind and calm. 

“Nu,” said Rabbi Fishbein, “may God give 
you all health and happiness and long life. I will 
see you at the wedding. And you, daughter,” 
turning to Annie, “continue to be one with your 
more humble blood-relations, even if you will be 
an American educated lady. For this, blessings 
will fall upon you.” 

Annie stood silent and mazed. Had no one 
even heard her? Why had such a storm of sensi- 


204 


THE LOVE CHILD 


tiveness risen in her? Hadn’t she hurt them? A 
strangeness came upon her; she felt lost, alone. 
She thought of her father and a golden bridge 
seemed to connect them. She could have shed 
bitter tears now because of their estrangement, 
and, the next moment, thought of him was repel¬ 
lent. “He’s a brute,” she said to herself, and 
turned calmly and said good-by to Rabbi Fishbein, 
while with an odd sense of shame she noticed 
Mira slipping a bill into the Rabbi’s hands. 
Gussie’s husband paid for! 

LXI 

A sense of futility followed Yekel about like a 
dark shadow. He was haunted by it. The days 
were hollow for him and the nights were filled 
with harrowing dreams. One night he dreamed 
he had hung Annie up by the hair at a great 
height, and though he heard her shrieking in an 
agony of pain, he did not go to her. Then she 
suddenly turned into a gray-haired ugly old 
woman who led him through an open door from 
where a great expanse of water, lapping against 
mossy buoys, was visible. The mossy buoys 
seemed each to have the face of Annie when she 
was young and lovely. As an old woman her 
face looked evil, smoothed over by hypocrisy. 
She also had excellent manners that both dis¬ 
gusted and ensnared Yekel. He followed her by 


THE LOVE CHILD 


205 


her invitation through the open country. She 
smiled up at him, and as if taking up a conversa¬ 
tion that had been momentarily neglected, she 
quoted, “Unrest is sacred. It makes for high 
achievement. Oh, yes, sometimes it makes for 
miserable failure.’* She broke off, and walked 
with him silently closer to the water. When, held 
by a vague fear, he stopped, she smiled up at him 
reassuringly, and begun to quote on a new trend. 
“All of us are tourists upon earth,” she said, 
“peddlers of our own peculiar wares. Some of 
us sell at a profit, some of us at a loss. Some of us 
feel at home; some of us find it a strange enough 
country.” They were close to the water’s edge. 
“You,” she said, looking up at him with sym¬ 
pathy, “are sick for home?” Her sympathy 
seemed so genuine,- Yekel forced back his sus¬ 
picions. He plunged his eyes into space, away 
from her. He felt a mighty push. When, petri¬ 
fied, he glanced up at her from the murky water, 
a fleeting expression made Annie’s face look like 
a witch’s. “You, you false one!” he cried, and 
just as he was about to sink he awoke with a start 
to see a pale shaft of light struggling into the 
bedroom from the room-of-all-affairs. He could 
scarcely shake off the reality of the dream. It 
held him rigid with its vividness, and made him 
shudder. To awaken himself more fully, he 
pulled out his watch from under the pillow. It 



206 


THE LOVE CHILD 


was ten minutes to six; time to get up. He did so, 
haunted by a shadow of morbid misgiving. 

Outside was a fog. A gray gloom hung over 
heaven. A wind charged without pause. It made 
one feel so desolate, so empty of heart. 

The fog lifted a little and showed the dingy 
streets, a saloon still closed, Jack’s Eating House, 
a shop for the retail of eggs and butter; under¬ 
sized, sallow-faced men busily coursing one way 
and another; women with baskets on their arms, 
out for the early marketing. The next moment 
the fog settled down again as gray as steel and 
cut him off somewhat from the sordid sur¬ 
roundings. 

Feifa Teitelbaum, in all his majestic boss-ship, 
already graced the shop when Yekel arrived. 
They exchanged a perfunctory greeting, and 
Yekel settled himself to work at once. Suddenly a 
peculiar lightness of heart came to him. It was as 
if he had had a divine message foretolling an end 
to bastings pulling, Feifa Teitelbaum’s eagle eye, 
the snub-nosed shop, throes and longings. A 
marvelous peace came over Yekel. He made 
plans, he began to think of Gussie’s wedding. He 
would have to wait until after the wedding to 
carry his plans into effect, he told himself. For 
the first time in his life he felt satisfied with him¬ 
self for, at last, he had a definite aim toward 
which he was heading. This satisfaction seemed 
to draw him away from his longing for whiskey. 



THE LOVE CHILD 


207 


He did not even think of drink, except now and 
then when a voice rose in him to mock him, to tell 
him he w T ould not have the courage to carry out 
his plans. At such times Yekel would ask himself 
ruefully, 4 ‘Won’t I?” and somewhere in the space 
into which he gazed figured a white subtle hand, 
holding a tumbler. 

LXII 

Mira remembered Annie’s helpful responsive¬ 
ness w T hen she had imparted her plan of a match¬ 
maker for Gussie, and her mental resolution then 
to reward Annie. The time had now come to put 
her resolution into effect. The reward she 
decided should be a silk dress. Annie expected 
only a cotton dress, no better than the lawn one 
that had been provided for Libbie. If Libbie took 
exception to this partiality, Mira decided she 
would appease her by saying that Annie was the 
older and, besides, was soon to be graduated from 
public school. The dress could serve for both 
ceremonies. She would promise Libbie a silk 
dress for the occasion of her graduation. 

Mira bought a remnant of white China silk. 
The silk being so expensive, Mira decided to 
make the dress herself. Her secret caused her 
great excitement. Her excitement projected itself 
into all she did, making her movements swifter, 
and her voice shriller. In her preoccupation, she 
kept on repeating things. “I engaged three musi- 


208 


THE LOVE CHILD 


dans,” she said at least one dozen times, forget¬ 
ting that she had ever said it before. And, “I 
baked the butter cakes; they keep fresh so long.’’ 
Time and again she repeated, until Annie cried 
petulantly: 

“Oh, mama, you say the same thing over and 
over again.” 

Mira was hurt. Though she kept her secret ever 
so closely, she expected appreciation from Annie. 
“And if I did say it before?” she asked, in a hurt 
voice. 

It had been agreed between her and Annie that 
they should go together to buy the new dress the 
day before the wedding, when Mira expected to 
have the money, as she told Annie; now she 
wished she had not left Annie feeling so secure 
on the subject. Annie’s insecurity, she felt, 
would have led her to inquire about the dress. 
Mira then would have had to let the secret out and 
Annie, knowing, would not have had the heart¬ 
lessness to show any impatience with her excited 
mother. But then, in a way, she did not want 
Annie to know yet, Mira told herself. 

As a matter of fact Annie was giving her dress 
very little thought, for she was living under a 
weight of heart-sickness she could not throw off, 
and could not clearly define. The only thing clear 
was that there seemed nothing ahead. Nina was 
gone, her father and Doctor Ellis were nothing 
to her. She could not think of smaller things con- 


THE LOVE CHILD 


209 


cerning herself. She forced herself into an out¬ 
ward vivacity regarding Gussie’s affairs, but 
underneath lay a feeling of purposelessness that, 
more than anything else, confused her. Some¬ 
times she wished that the wedding were over so 
that she could strive to get herself out of her 
spiritual tangle. She told herself that college 
would bring new associates and more interesting 
studies, and with this she encouraged herself into 
a hopefulness that would last a little while. For 
the most part she went about feeling dissatisfied 
and helpless; the ugliness of the tenement streets 
obtruded itself more than ever upon her now; so 
did the wretchedness of the home and the hideous 
lack of privacy. “It’s terrible,” she kept saying 
to herself. 

LXIII 

For two days before Gussie’s wedding it rained 
incessantly. Such a heavy gloom hung over the 
city, with its puddles of murky water, that even 
the light-hearted were depressed. Mira went 
about crying, “Woe is me, will it rain to-morrow 
too?” Gussie wrung her hands in despair. The 
rain really did interfere with all their plans. 
There were the foodstuffs and dishes to be taken 
from home to the shop. For this Mira had 
ordered a pushcart that, of course, had no top 
to protect from the rain the things it was to 
carry. Even Gussie’s boss was distressed. At 


210 


THE LOVE CHILD 


last he suggested, through one of his workers 
who kept in constant touch with Gussie, that she 
should make use of a sheet of oilcloth that lay 
unused in the shop. “Tell her no water can go 
through that; let her put it on top of the things 
in the pushcart. ” But Mira sent a message of 
thanks and said Gussie preferred to wait until the 
very morning of the wedding, by which time 
it might clear up. After that Mira went about 
watching for signs of clearing up, and growing 
ever less moderate in her expressions of des¬ 
pair. Whereas before she sighed, moaned and 
implored the Deity, now she cried and tore her 
hair. 

What with the excitement of Mira ^nd Gussie, 
the blustering, thundering presence of Joshua 
and the many calls from friends and neighbors, 
to say nothing of the multitude of extra things 
that crowded the very breath out of the home, 
it was like bedlam. Annie felt like one thrown 
out upon a noisy, busy thoroughfare; she was 
a quivering mass of nerves. Libbie, too, was 
all unstrung. As for Yekel, he could scarcely 
stand it. 

The night before the wedding, Mira was simply 
impossible. Her voice rose to so shrill a pitch, 
she had so much to say, and was so incessantly 
doing things, that she kept up a steady whirlwind 
in the house. Until late in the night she con¬ 
tinued so, giving no one any peace. 


THE LOVE CHILD 


211 


Before morning, the craving for drink had 
Yekel in relentless clutches. 

He was afraid to go out on the street. He was 
sure he could not pass a saloon without going in. 
How he wanted to keep away from drink this one 
day more! Under his fear, a great excitement 
surged up in him. He struggled to be calm. 
He asked himself, did he not remember that not 
long ago he had another plan? And he 
tried to live over again the satisfaction he had 
felt in himself at the time. But it did not help; 
the longing for drink gnawed at his vitals. 

It was still raining, but a real promise of clear¬ 
ing up gleamed in the sky. It would clear up, 
Mira declared, as if to challenge the elements. 

The pushcart man arrived. 

Mira found everyone in the way in the bustle 
and turmoil that followed. She ordered each one 
to a different corner of the home. Becoming con¬ 
scious of Yekel’s bulk about, she shouted: 

“What’s the matter with you? Isn’t it time 
you left long ago? What are doing here?” She 
simply shooed him out. ‘ ‘ Come home early,’ 9 she 
called after him, “don’t dare be late. If we 
didn’t need the payde (wages), I wouldn’t let you 
go to work at all to-day.” 

Her voice—how it grated on his nerves! How 
it grated on his nerves! 

He was terrified of the street, but what a relief 
to escape the voice! 



212 


THE LOVE CHILD 


It rained heavily again. Soon it increased to a 
drenching downpour. It was as if nature herself 
in a height of anguish and abandonment were 
casting herself prone on the earth. 

Yekel looked up at the dismal sky. The 
memory of his brief return to a belief in God 
came back to him. “God! God!” hammered 
cynically against his brain, while within him the 
struggle for drink raged. 

He grew tired as from physical wrestling. A 
sense of utter helplessness swept over him. And 
then he was possessed with a fury against God. 
He stopped short. He looked up*- again at the 
heavens. “You empty boaster.” He paused. 
“I tell You, You are an empty boaster,” he re¬ 
peated, and stood heaving for breath, while hot 
tears scalded his cheeks. He dabbed the tears 
away with the palm of his hand. “If You exist,” 
he cried, “You are hard, mean, merciless, cruel, 
cruel, I tell You—” 

A sudden timidity, in which fear mingled, took 
hold of him. He resumed his walking, his head 
bowed low, feeling himself a condemned man. His 
throbbing heart seemed to shake the world with 
its beats. 

LXIV 

The day before the wedding Annie suddenly 
thought to remind her mother that they must go 
and buy her a dress. “I’ll tell you the truth,” 


THE LOVE CHILD 


213 


said Mira, “I ordered a dress I know you*11 like, 
and it won’t be ready until to-morrow.” 

“Is it a nice dress? Why did you order it 
alone?” Annie was surprised but not suspicious. 

“It’s a dress not very different from Libbie’s, 
only more suited to your maturer figure, and I 
knew you would like it. I forgot to tell you I had 
ordered it,” said Mira. 

Annie did like Libbie’s dress, which was simple, 
but very nicely made, and she was just as well 
pleased to be rid of the bother of seeking another 
style out for herself. She said no more. 

Early in the afternoon of the wedding day 
Mira sprang her white China silk surprise. 

“A silk dress for me?” cried Annie, unbe¬ 
lieving. 

“Only because I didn’t mind,” boasted Libbie. 

“For you I’ll get one when you gramgate from 
school,” said Mira, her cheeks flushed and an 
excited sparkle in her slits of blue eyes. She 
turned to Annie for more expressions of sur¬ 
prise, to be followed by demonstrations of appre¬ 
ciation. Mira wanted her full share of both. 

“Why, mama, it’s beautiful!” gasped Annie, 
fingering the soft silk and the dainty lace trim¬ 
ming. It was a one-piece garment, neatly made 
with many pin tucks, a V neck and a pale pink 
satin sash. 

“It is beautiful,” agreed Mira. 

“As nice as my wedding dress,” ventured 


214 


THE LOVE CHILD 


Gussie softly, blushing modestly, smiling, her 
eyes tearful. 

“Oh!” Annie was impotent. The exclamation 
rang like a note of ecstasy in music. 

“Try it on,” cried Mira and Gussie and Libbie 
in chorus. 

A silence of suspense followed while Annie un¬ 
dressed and then stood while her mother re¬ 
dressed her in the China silk magnificence. 

She made a lovely picture. The whiteness and 
softness of the silk brought out the endless glints 
of her heavy brown hair. THb soft look in her 
blue-gray eyes, over which dark narrow eyebrows 
curved away with delicate subtlety, gave to her 
face the stamp of nobility. 

“Oh, you look peachy!” cried Libbie. 

“Like a regular lady,” added Mira. 

Back of the table hung a spotted looking-glass. 
In order to see herself at full length, Annie 
pushed the table to one side. She stood, pleasure 
beaming in her face, looking at herself, while the 
eyes of the others also were riveted on her re¬ 
flection. 

Suddenly Libbie cried, “Oh Ann, you’re a 
beauty, do you know?” The realization seemed 
to have come to her all of a sudden, with too 
great force to be repressed. 

A thrill of delight shot through Annie. She 
hung her head modestly. 

“Don’t be so modest,” boasted Mira loudly. 


THE LOVE CHILD 


215 


“Ut, far back on my side of the family there were 
a few beauties, blue-eyed, dark-haired ones. It’s 

from my side you get the beauty-” but 

through her mind wafted thought of the old 
country, and of a barmaid and Annie’s father. 
Mira sighed. 

Annie turned abruptly; her forehead ruffled. 
“Really, am I really beautiful, mama?” she 
asked. 

“So you are,” Mira said. 

“She’ll get conceited,” blurted Libbie. “Once 
to tell her is enough.” 

Annie flushed, smiled, hung her head. This 
seemed to move Libbie, for she suddenly gave 
way to unprecedented demonstrativeness. She 
made a dash over to Annie, seized her by the 
hands, danced her in a circle around the room. 
“My, you are beautiful—my, you are beautiful!” 
she sang to the tune of “How fickle women 
are-” 

Gussie and Mira laughed. 

And just as Annie’s heart, in spite of herself, 
swelled with longing that her father, too, were 
there to enjoy the jollity, the door opened upon 
him—drunk. 

LXV 

Despite his befuddlement, Yekel felt the shock 
of his condition upon his family. And from some¬ 
where there came to him the clearness of heart 




216 


THE LOVE CHILD 


to be sorry for them, and from somewhere also 
came the urge to be hilarious. It was as if by 
being hilarious he could cover over his drunken¬ 
ness and drive the pallor from their faces, and 
get them to talk. This silence he could not en¬ 
dure. They stood around like dead things, pale 
and silent! Why? One would think he was ter¬ 
ribly drunk. A man had a right to take a drink 
once in a while. 

How he wished he couM say all this to them! 

Instead, he sat, his pudgy hands on his pudgy 
knees, swaying backward and forward, conscious 
of his lower lip drooping to the sound of the 
words within. Oh, now really, they ought not 
to be carrying on so. One would think he was 
so drunk his mind was gone. Well, his mind 
wasn’t gone; he could think perfectly clearly; 
never had he been able to think more clearly in 
his life. He could remember the time he was a 
mere boy—mere boy—everything—rabbi—and a 
whole night he had slept on top of a mountain. 
Why, it was all perfectly clear in his mind. Fur¬ 
thermore, he could sit perfectly straight on his 
chair, and by night he would be quite all right— 
sober as could be. Why, even now he could 
stand up straight. He tried to rise; he couldn’t. 
He rubbed his hand over his eyes, brought it 
back unevenly through the air to his knee. What 
if he couldn’t stand? Must a man stand? To sit 
was just as good. He wanted to say so, but 



THE LOVE CHILD 


217 


couldn’t. 

He looked from one to the other, and began to 
feel intolerably oppressed by the hostility around 
him. He thought of crying to scare the hostility 
away. But no, he wouldn’t. He sat up straighter 
in his chair. Tears came to his eyes of their own 
accord. He had a little difficulty in finding his 
eyes. When at last he did, he wiped the tears 
away, thinking that by night he would surely be 
sober again. 

Just then Libbie crossed the room, passing 
close by him. By a sudden impulse he bent for¬ 
ward and caught hold of her. At the pallor that 
spread over her face he haw-hawed; it was a good 
joke. “Shay,” he said, “wassha so fray fer?” 
His tongue felt altogether out of place in his 
mouth; he was annoyed by it, and wished he could 
place it elsewhere. Libbie squirmed in his arms. 
Well, that was a pretty state of affairs! He 
pinched her, thinking to force her to capitulate to 
his embrace. Instead, Libbie shrieked, “Mama! 
Oh, mama! ’ ’ 

Mira bounded over. 

“Bummer!” she hissed at Yekel, her mouth a 
terribly bitter stroke across her pale, pinched face. 
She tore Libbie away from him. 

Yekel pursed his lips, looked up, winked at 
Mira, gave her a light slap on the wrist. “Don- 
cha gerrangry,” he said, and once more he haw- 
hawed. His laugh broke off like a snapped stem, 


218 


THE LOVE CHILD 


for there crowded upon him resentment against 
the hostility around him. He felt it was im¬ 
mensely unjust. It hurt him. Again the tears 
came to his eyes, for he felt a great need of sym¬ 
pathy. Again he had some difficulty finding his 
eyes to wipe the tears away. As of itself a silly 
smile then broke over his face. Following a sud¬ 
den impulse, he glanced up flirtatiously at Mira. 
But Mira did not see his effort, for she was walk¬ 
ing off, in abject misery muttering, “To-day! 
Just to-day! God in heaven, what should we do V ’ 
Yekel was left feeling cheated of the grand oppor¬ 
tunity to make peace. It seemed to him that if 
Mira had only seen his flirtatious look all would 
have ended well, and he could have promised her 
that by night he would be sober. He ruffled his 
forehead; he scratched his head; he looked as if 
to say, “There must be something to do. What 
can it be V 9 

His eyes fell upon Annie. A sense of great 
spiritual closeness to her shot through him and 
seemed to sweep away the pressure from the top 
of his head. He felt extraordinarily light; a crys¬ 
tal clearness was over his mind. All his senses 
seemed to quicken suddenly. All the facts of his 
drunken career, compact and mercilessly vivid, 
grew furiously alive in his memory. It seemed 
to him that all the sensations, physical and spir¬ 
itual, that he had ever known were crowding now 
upon him in one moment. All the elusive emo- 


THE LOVE CHILD 


219 


tions and impressions that haunted the dark re¬ 
cesses of his mind became electrified with life. 
He felt terribly alive and terribly sober. He felt 
an overpowering need to convince Annie that he 
was sober and alive. He caught her eye. 

With his forefinger he beckoned her to come to 
him, throwing a surreptitious glance about the 
room, glad to find no one else was noticing him. 

A cold sweat broke over Annie. Under a wave 
of revulsion she felt her whole being grow numb. 
She made no sign of obeying his summons. 

Yekel beckoned again. Annie looked away. 

An angry flush rose to Yekel’s face. He was 
not going to be disobeyed. “I called you. You 
heard me?” he cried, hiccoughing, enunciating 
clearly, his anger as if completely obliterating his 
drunkenness. 

Annie made no answer. Yekel purpled with 
rage. He forgot everybody and everything but 
his purpose. He rose. ‘ ‘ Hear me V ’ he thundered, 
balancing himself with one hand on his chair. 
“Hear me?” he repeated, his loud voice tearing 
through the air. 

And as Annie still did not answer, Yekel’s fist 
crashed down upon the table. The dishes rattled. 
The new pitcher fell to the floor and broke to 
pieces. 

An ominous pause followed. 

Then Mira, like a madwoman, swept across the 
room and hissed in his face, her fists clenched 


220 


THE LOVE CHILD 


with rage, “I’ll break your head to pieces, you 
good for nothing bum, you inconsiderate brute, 
you swine, you heartless bull!” 

The words pressed upon Annie’s heart with a 
sudden unutterable pain. An ominous light came 
into her eyes. 

Yekel took a saucer and deliberately threw it 
to the floor, shattering it to bits. 

Mira held off a short moment, then, rage strip¬ 
ping her of all reason, she flung herself forward 
and struck Yekel in the face. 

With a cry of anguish Annie leaped forward 
and thrust herself between her father and mother. 
She stood panting, glaring down into the depths 
of her mother’s eyes, her mind in a whirl; she was 
like one suddenly crazed. “How dare you! How 
dare you!” she cried. 

Yekel’s heart, beating in a drunken fog, felt 
like a leaden weight. He hung his head as his 
eyes caught Annie’s look of ineffable grief and 
compassion. 

Libbie shot forward. “How dare you?” she 
yelled in Annie’s face. “The silk dress you for¬ 
got already?” She turned and addressed her¬ 
self bitterly to the room-of-all-affairs. “Every¬ 
thing mama does for her, and she sticks up for 
him! For him she sticks up—the bum, when on 
his own child’s wedding day he gets drunk! He 
shames us before the whole world and she sticks 
up for him!” 


THE LOVE CHILD 


221 


A terrible moment of silence followed, during 
which Yekel was seized with a fear of catastrophe. 
He had an over-mastering wish to make peace. 

“Sha-” he begged of everyone in general, 

bending raggedly forward, clumsily striking the 

air with his hand. “Sha-” 

Mira, spent, heart-broken at the sight of 
Gussie’s grief, took her daughter’s arm. ‘ ‘ Come, ’ ’ 
she said, “come, we’ll go do our work for the 
wedding. We’ll do the work. We’ll have the 
wedding. Let him go to hell and sleep. He cannot 
disgrace us; he only disgraces himself. And 
she—” Mira turned her eyes on Annie, “so long 
as I live I will not forgive her this show of favor 
to her no good drunken father. I am through 
with her.” Followed by Gussie and Libbie she 
dashed out of the house to go to the shop and 
do what was possible before the workers quit for 
the day. 


* * # * * 

They looked into each other’s eyes—the father 
and the love-child. Clear, penetrating were hers; 
his were blood-shot and blurred. 

There was nothing more against which to pro¬ 
tect her father, and Annie’s protectiveness fell 
together like a bursted balloon. She stood re¬ 
garding him silently, thoughtfully. In her ears 
sounded her mother’s piteous, hurt voice. In her 
mind lingered a picture of the white China silk 




222 


THE LOVE CHILD 


dress. A feeling of tender gratitude toward her 
mother for her goodness and sacrifice welled 
up in Annie’s heart. With tender pity she recol¬ 
lected her mother’s hurt the day they had de¬ 
serted her to accompany this drunkard to Seward 
Park. She gazed appraisingly into her father’s 
eyes. “A drunkard he is, a drunkard, nothing, 
nothing more,” she thought with hitter finality. 
Every effort she had made to help him loomed 
up a farce in the light of the present. He was 
beyond help, he was no good, no good through 
and through. Her heart ached dully. She saw 
her father more clearly, it seemed to her, than 
ever before: all selfishness, all brutishness, a 
bad, bad man he was. All her hopes, all her 
ambitions now, as if once for all, one by one, 
laid down their arms and fell dead one on top of 
the other at her feet. In a spurt of new spirit 
she stepped resolutely over this heap of dead 
things. With a definiteness she had never be¬ 
fore felt, she now knew she was through and, 
being through, she felt a surge of rage. 

“Drunkard!” she dragged out, piercing her 
father’s eyes with her own, “Drunkard!” Then 
she turned and fled. 


LXVI 

Yekel stood staring at the closed door. “Drunk¬ 
ard!” Something palpable and heavy seemed 



THE LOVE CHILD 


223 


to fall a thousand times upon his head, making 
a thunderous buzzing in his ears, stunning 
him. Abruptly the rumble ceased; his mind 
cleared. ‘ 6 Drunkard/ * he repeated slowly. So 
she had called him drunkard at last. His 
love-child. He could scarcely believe it. Yet 
it was so. There was nothing else to do 
but believe it. He felt terribly sober now, 
and terribly weary. He dragged himself over 
to the table at the other end of the room. One 
hand upon the table, he stood taut. Slowly he 
raised his other hand to his breast as if to still 
the heaving sounds. His throat contracted in 
short, sharp, painful spasms. In a moment he 
broke, and collapsed. He sank into a chair and 
began to sob. Then abruptly his sobbing ceased. 
He fell asleep. In an hour he awoke, feeling 
lighter and steadier. He remembered Annie. 
He went out in search of her. 

LXVII 

The shop in which Gussie had worked and in 
which she was to celebrate her wedding was a 
big loft of a sweat shop building on Willet Street. 
It was an ugly place, with its rough and worn 
wooden floor, its mouldy, musty walls and ceil¬ 
ing, and its bespattered, broken window panes. 
To its natural ugliness was added the ugliness 
of age worn sewing machines, stools, rolls of 


224 


THE LOVE CHILD 


thread, boxes and boxes of buttons, and stacks 
of boys’ knee-pants. 

The proprietor, a pompous but good-hearted 
man, rapidly working his way up to a summer 
house in Arverne-by-the-Sea, greeted his former 
worker, her mother and little sister warmly. To 
seem even more friendly, he resorted to Yiddish. 

44 We will push the machines against the walls,” 
he said, “all the other stuff, too, so it will be out 
of the way. The tables”—there were three of 
them, long affairs used for cutting out the pants 
—“we can put one alongside the other in the mid¬ 
dle of the room. You will find this a comfortable 
place.” 

Mira, her face a mass of wrinkles, and feeling 
timid under the strain of her worry, tried to 
smile. i i It was so very kind of you to let us have 
the place for nothing,” she said ingratiatingly. 
“We appreciate it a great deal.” 

“Oh, not at all,” retorted the boss, “Gussie 
worked many years for me. She was loyal and 
I am glad to do her the good turn, only too glad.” 

“Have the workers gone home already?” asked 
Gussie timidly. 

“Yes,” answered the boss, “it is slack anyway. 
I thought I would empty the place early for you 
so you could fix it up to your heart’s content.” 

“Did the foodstuffs and dishes come all right?” 
asked Mira.* 

“Oh, yes, yes. I quite forgot. It’s all in the 


THE LOVE CHILD 


225 


rear. You’ll find it. To the right you’ll find a 
gas-range to do all the heating up you require.’’ 
He was taking his hat preparatory to leaving, 
quite forgetting he had included himself for the 
task of moving the machines to one side and the 
tables to the center. 

“I’ll see you later,” he said, for he had been 
invited to the wedding, and intended to come. 

“Good-by, good-by,” said Mira, Gussie echoing 

her. 

“Thank you a thousand times,” faltered 
Gussie. 

“A thousand times,” Mira echoed. 

The boss left. 

Gussie looked at Mira. Mira looked at Gussie. , 
Libbie, her lips parted, her nostrils quivering, 
her eyes blinking, looked from one to the other. 
Then, as one person, Gussie and Mira sat down 
on chairs and began to cry. Libbie dropped 
down on a stack of boys ’ knee-pants, and she, too, 
began to cry. 

This lasted fully ten minutes. Then Mira, 
blowing her nose and wiping her eyes, rose. 

“Come, Gussele, it’s getting late. We’ll fix 
things up and go back home. You must have 
your hair curled yet and fixed at the hair-dresser’s 
and it will take time to go back home and dress 
and come back.” She sighed. Gussie sighed 
too. Gussie rose. Together they began shoving 
the machines to one side, pushing the tables to 


226 


THE LOVE CHILD 


the center, arranging chairs around them. Lib- 
bie was given orders to cover the tables with the 
table-cloths. Then came the setting of the tables. 

Three large bowls of fruit were set one in the 
middle and one at each end of each of the three 
tables; grated horseradish followed; then fol¬ 
lowed bottles of w T ine, and bottles of whiskey, 
glasses and, finally, the dishes. There were all 
sorts and patterns of dishes, borrowed from all 
the neighbors who had any to lend. Mira herself 
arranged the plates holding the many kinds of 
cake she had baked. 

After the work was done all three withdrew to 
the door and stood contemplating the effect. But 
for the reflection of the surrounding gloom, they 
felt the tables would look really nice. Both Gus- 
sie and Mira sighed light regret as they glanced 
at each other. Neither said anything. 

Libbie mumbled, “It’s good. Annie’ll—” The 
rest froze on her tongue. She had forgotten for 
the moment how Annie stood in her mother’s 
heart. 

They were retracing their steps, and with each 
step Gussie’s and Mira’s sense of disaster height¬ 
ened. “God mine,” Mira wailed at last, “I 
can’t believe that actually for months he went 
around sober and to-day he is drunk!” 

Gussie hung her head in misery. “It’s my 
dark luck,” she said, scarcely audibly. 

Cried Mira, “But think how lucky you are that 


THE LOVE CHILD 


227 


you have a young man who will not hold it against 
you!” 

“A Yiddisher glick,” (Jewish luck) sighed 
Gussie. 

The rest of the way they walked in silence, ex¬ 
cept for Libbie’s sniffling, coughing and occa¬ 
sional low humming. 

After visiting the hair-dresser’s where Gussie 
and Mira had their hair marcel-waved, they went 
home, to the tune of Libbie’s ecstatic: 

i t It’s not to reconize you at all! It’s not to 
reconize you at all. You look peachy, both!” 

j' 

LXVIII 

They found Annie at home, but not Yekel. 

p 

Annie had wandered about the streets and had 
finally come back home, knowing there was nothing 
else to do. 

Though no one mentioned the matter, each was 
thinking of Yekel. Would he be home in time for 
the wedding? Would his drunkenness have worn 
off by then? Yekel had a way of shedding his 
intoxication suddenly and unexpectedly. 

“Thank God,” whispered Gussie, “it’s custom¬ 
ary for the groom to stay away from the bride 
on the day of the wedding. At least he isn’t here 
to witness our misery.” 

“Thank God, indeed,” sighed Mira. 


228 


THE LOVE CHILD 


LXIX 

Yekel stumbled through the streets, blindly ex¬ 
pecting at every turn to encounter his daughter, 
more and more disappointed that he did not. He 
had thought out clearly a method of winning back 
her love. Oh, she loved him. Of that he was sure 
now; otherwise why had she taken his part with 
such a show of passion! It was involuntary 
action that counted, he told himself, and what 
she had said later was as nothing. The drunken 
soul of Yekel chuckled in the knowledge of his 
victory. In spite of that loafer of a Doctor Ellis, 
she really and truly loved her father! That visit 
she paid Doctor Ellis! Maybe she had gone be¬ 
cause her father had hissed “I won’t!” in her 
face. Oh, no, he was not too drunk to bring about 
an understanding; he felt fully capable of ex¬ 
plaining. He would go into the explanation just 
as soon as he met her. In fact, he would also tell 
her the story of Solveig’s Lied; every bit of it, 
from beginning to end. What was that he had 
thought of the other day! Life was not worth 
the struggle! Why, his love-child w r as the prize ‘ 
of humanity that God, in his bounty, had granted 
him, Yekel the drunkard! Beautiful she was, as 
beautiful as the heavens. The lovely girl! 
Yekel’s nerves tingled with a new delight. He 
began to call Annie names to himself, names 


THE LOVE CHILD 


229 


sweet and tender, and to look eagerly around for 
her. Where was she? Surely by this time she 
ought to have crossed his path. His disappoint¬ 
ment grew, and in the midst of it he began again to 
think of how he would win her over to him. In 
case she was reluctant to stop and talk to him, 
this was how he would arrest her attention: he 
would offer to buy her a pickle. She liked pickles. 
He remembered her as a very little girl w T hen, to 
stop her tears, her mother used to holdout the bribe 
of a pickle. Instead of Mira it was he who was 
holding out the delicacy to the little tearful baby 
now; he saw her toddling over to him, tears ar¬ 
rested, a half-smile on her face. She was close 
to his knee, reaching up her tiny pink hands. He 
held out the pickle. She seized it, with a gasp. 
He saw her tears magically disappear, and glad¬ 
ness, like sunshine, break out over her face. His 

0 

love-child! 

He dragged along, smiling unconsciously, call¬ 
ing Annie by names tender and sweet, sending 
messages to her along with the wind that had 
swept the rain out of the day. 

But Annie did not appear. 

Yekel’s glances became anxious. At one 
moment he looked up and mechanically read 
“Allen Street” on a street lamp. At the same 
moment he heard an arresting sound, ‘ ‘ Tse! Tse! ” 
He glanced around. Behind sheer lace curtains 
that veiled a window T of a ground floor flat, a 


230 


THE LOVE CHILD 


woman, her bosom exposed, sat smiling. When she 
caught Yekel’s eye she winked. Yekel knew her 
trade. He frowned, while a momentary feeling 
of desire shot through him. He dropped his eyes 
and walked on. He fell to thinking about the hid¬ 
eousness of the business that was going on behind 
lace curtain on Allen Street. It struck him 
of a sudden that his children attended Allen 
Street School. Young ones, in all their innocence, 
came upon this vileness daily, lived surrounded 
by it, he reflected sorrowfully. Life for a moment 
became for Yekel a weight too heavy to carry. 
He felt himself give way under it, and under a 
sense of guilt. How remiss he had been in his 
fatherhood! And now it seemed to him as if 
nothing he could say, nothing he could do, nothing 
he could plan for the future could ever make up 
for the past. He felt utterly defeated. He 
didn’t care to meet Annie any more. He had 
nothing to say to her. She had called him drunk¬ 
ard, and worse was in her mind. She was right, 
she was right, her father was bad—no father, no 
man. 

A woman, smiling alluringly, lurched against 
his thigh. Yekel heard himself called “good 
looking,” “a prince.” 

For a moment he felt strangely unrelated to 
the whole universe. In that moment he followed 
the woman into her house. 


THE LOVE CHILD 


231 


LXX 

The three musicians were the first to arrive at 
the wedding. 

“We’ll sit by the door,” softly spoke the vio¬ 
linist, a little, anaemic looking young man with 
dreamy brown eyes. 

“That goes without saying,” answered the 
burly banjoist. 

The accordion player, for all the world appear¬ 
ing to open and fold like the instrument he played, 
smiled out of his narrow gray eyes. This little 
violinist and that hulk of a banjoist were always 
quarreling, he thought as he went off to look up 
a deep plate for the collection of money gifts 
from the guests. 

When he returned with the plate and was 
putting it on a chair close to the door, the violinist 
ventured: 

“I hope the guests are a little generous. That 
red-headed haggler pulled down one dollar on the 
price. She was like a leech. I couldn’t shake 
her off.” 

“You can never shake off a had bargain,” 
grunted the banjoist. “Plenty good ones you 
shake off without even trying.” 

At this all three smiled. They were good 
friends, the violinist and the banjoist, for all their 
bickering. 

“Say, fellers, you both,” commanded the ban- 


232 


THE LOVE CHILD 


joist next, ‘‘ when you see what looks like ready 
cash, play up loud and lively. ’ ’ 

He received nodding acquiescence. 

All three sat down. They began to tune their 
instruments. 

Soon Mira and her daughters arrived. 

Considerable fluttering ensued. Mira flew 
here, Gussie there. 

The musicians continued to tune up. 

At last the guests began to arrive. They came 
in small groups, young men, young women, girls, 
boys, wrinkled little old women, bent, bearded 
men, behind wdiose faint smiles lurked the shad¬ 
ows of much sighing and the brooding dimness of 
old-world mysticism. 

No one missed Yekel. In fact Yekel was con¬ 
sidered, by all who knew the Cohen family and its 
history, as a sort of superfluity, a kind of pest of 
which Mira could not rid herself. No one asked 
for him; no one cared. If ever Mira was glad of 
the indifference which, thanks to her, was her hus¬ 
band’s portion among the friends of the family, 
she was glad now. But she herself kept throwing 
frequent eager glances toward the door, not be¬ 
cause she was so anxious to see her husband come 
in, as to glimpse his condition should he put in an 
appearance. By this time she was determined 
that if he seemed in a mood to cause a disturbance 
she would have Libbie lead him home. The fact 
that no one had missed him had given Mira cour- 


THE LOVE CHILD 


233 


age. 

Joshua was the first to ask about Yekel. Flus¬ 
tered and stiff in the full dress suit he had hired 
for the occasion, Joshua looked like the jack of 
diamonds in a pack of cards. He brought over 
Isaac Schaefer, his business partner, to meet 
the Cohen family. 

“Sh-sh!” whispered Mira, when he asked for 
Yekel. 

Joshua had no kinder feelings for his father- 
in-law than his father-in-law had for him. In 
fact, to Joshua, Yekel Cohen was a hulk of flesh 
designed for no purpose whatsoever. 

“Did he break a leg?” whispered Joshua. 

Fortunately, as Mira felt, Isaac Schaefer at 
that moment raised his voice in a manner not to 
be ignored, so that her answer was not impera¬ 
tive. 

“My Gawd, ets a pruddy bride you’re getting 
like a picture, so help me Gawd!” cried Isaac 
Schaefer. 

After laughing, Mira went off to mingle with 
the guests. 

The musicians struck up a gay tune. Couples 
danced. Others clapped hands. It was merry, 
so merry. 

Mira continued to dart frequent glances at the 
door. Annie, standing at the door, met her 
mother’s glance. Annie’s eyes were dim and sor¬ 
rowful, for she was thinking of Yekel. She was 


234 


THE LOVE CHILD 


wondering where he was, bitterly regretting her 
onslaught. At the unexpected encounter of her 
mother’s eyes, a look of alarm came into her face; 
she gave a downward startled glance and then 
hid away in a corner where she knew she could 
not be seen but from where she could see every¬ 
one who came in. 

But Yekel did not come. 

All the guests had long since arrived. The 
wedding ceremony had been performed. Dancers 
had danced their gayest. It was time for supper. 

In spite of herself, Mira kept postponing the 
seating of the guests in the faint hope that Yekel 
would yet come, his intoxication gone. 

But the hour came when postponement was no 
longer possible. Mira made a hasty, half-hearted 
allotment of seats. 

Annie’s place fell at the middle of the table 
farthest away from the door. At the head of the 
same table sat the flushed bride and sweating 
groom, Rabbi Fishbein and Mira. Opposite Annie 
sat Libbie. Next to Libbie sat a young cousin of 
even poorer extraction than the Cohens who, the 
moment she was seated, placed a sheet of news¬ 
paper under the table upon which she planned, by 
her mother’s instructions to drop pieces of food, 
whenever the opportunity presented itself, to be 
taken home to the rest of the family. 

At the chief table also sat the toastmaster, 
Isaac Schaefer. 


THE LOVE CHILD 


235 


Isaac Schaefer was not God’s masterpiece. 
Physically he might remind one of a good chunk 
of beef; he was short, round, red, beefy looking. 
In his very eyes was his spirit reflected. They 
were eyes whose blueness told you that life was 
a meal, a bed, a bank account, and that all who 
thought otherwise were fools. 

Nudged by Joshua, he rose leisurely and swept 
a long, narrow look around the tables. There was 
a twinkle in his eyes. He stood a moment with 
his head slightly bent, his eyes raised, saying 
nothing. Then he cleared his throat. 

Then, “Ladies and gents, kochhes and gens,” 
he began. 

“Speak Yiddish,” whispered the flustered Jos¬ 
hua. 

Rabbi Fishbein made staccato noises in his 
big bandanna handkerchief. A slight pause fol¬ 
lowed. 

Isaac Schaefer proceeded in Yiddish. “My 
dear friends, it is a great pleasure to be here as¬ 
sembled with you at the wedding of my very dear 
friend, Joshua Levine. Not alone my friend is 
he, but my partner in business and I have had 
occasion enough to learn that he is an A number 
one gentleman, worthy of even so pretty a maiden 
as the bride of the evening, Gussie Cohen. ’ ’ Isaac 
spoke slowly, with deliberation. He paused for 
want of thought. “Yes,” he w T ent on, “it is a 
pleasure, I repeat, to be here to-night, and ex- 


236 


THE LOVE CHILD 


pecially with my friend, Joshua Levine. Now 
the bride, Gussie Cohen, is an exceptionally pretty 
and nice and respectable and modest young lady 
and together they will make a fine set.” He 
stopped for the titters like an orator acknowledg¬ 
ing applause. 

There was a sudden clinking of glasses. A 
few guests were pouring themselves wine. Isaac 
waited for quiet. He continued: 

“They say matches are made in heaven, but I 
understand the estimable Rabbi Fishbein whom 
we fortunately have with us here to-night made 
this match.” 

Again titters. 

“And, well now,” continued Isaac, dropping 
his chin, ruffling his brow, raising his eyes, “as 
the time is flying, you will listen to telegrams re¬ 
ceived this evening from the most important 
people of the United States, on this most impor¬ 
tant event in the United States.” While he broke 
open a mock telegram, he said in an undertone, 
but perfectly audibly, “Nothing more important 
than the world should become peopled with little 
Joshuas.” 

Merry laughter sounded. 

Annie, hearing, felt her mind halt in amaze¬ 
ment. She seemed to coil up within herself. 

“Here,” cried Isaac Schaefer in a raised voice, 
“is a telegram from the President of the United 
States.” He paused, while sly, knowing sparks 


THE LOVE CHILD 


237 


leaped out of his eyes. “ ‘ Happiness and joys, 
next year a pair of boys!’ ” he thundered. 

Hilarious laughter. The guests fairly rocked 
in their seats. 

Isaac’s eyes caused something to rise in 
Annie’s soul of which she felt curiously ashamed. 
The feeling that rose up in her was so keen she 
was afraid it could be seen in her face. In her 
excitement, hardly conscious of what she was do¬ 
ing, she poured herself out a small glass of whis¬ 
key and drank it slowly. There came to her a 
flash of understanding of her father’s love of the 
stuff. “What a wonderful taste it has!” she 
thought. She had never tasted whiskey before; 
Mira kept it out of the house as if it w T ere poison. 

In a moment, a curious elation seized Annie. 

“The next telegram,” thundered Isaac Schae¬ 
fer, “is from the Honorable Mayor.” Again 
that knowing, sly look came into his eyes. * i The 
Mayor says,” he bellowed, “Life is an empty 
dream in a single bed. ’ ’ 

A little self-consciously the audience laughed, 
but laugh it did. 

Annie glanced timidly around the room. It 
was the fact that Gussie, too, was laughing that 
made her hand shoot out across the table, seize 
the neck of the whiskey bottle, pour herself out 
another glass. 

The people, the room, seemed to melt away 
mist-like from sight, as Annie gazed at Isaac 



238 


THE LOVE CHILD 


Schaefer whose mouth opened and shut, and 
opened and shut. 

Every now and then Annie glanced at the door. 
Dim in her consciousness lay the thought of a 
father who must come. Sensations possessed 
her, contradictory sensations each keenly felt. 
She wanted to laugh, she wanted to cry. She 
wanted to fly through the air, she wanted to sink 
through the floor, she wanted to be silent, she 
wanted to shout. There were slight murmurous 
sounds of gladness in her heart. The room was 
not so dim as it had been, the table-cloth shone up 
into her eyes beautifully, her mother’s cakes car¬ 
ried an air of prosperity. 

Even in her gladness Annie’s glances at the 
door were troubled. 

Isaac’s bellowing continued. His twinkling 
eyes made a curious excitement rise in Annie, an 
excitement vivid and intimate. All of a sudden 
a fairy-tale hung about in the air. Prince Answer 
—Doctor Ellis—Papa—they were all mixed up in 
her mind. 

LXXI 

When Yekel found himself inside the Allen 
Street flat he discovered that the woman with 
him held his hat in her hand. He could not ex¬ 
actly remember whether she had taken it off his 
head on the street and whether he had followed 
her in on that account. At any rate, he knew now 


THE LOVE CHILD 


239 


that she was short and heavy-limbed, with a great 
bulk of bust. Her appearance repelled him some¬ 
what. Yet, as she coquetted around him, he felt 
sparks of desire shoot up in him. 

How it happened he could not understand, but 
in a moment he was sitting in a soft chair, she 
on his lap, and he was biting into the warm flesh 
of her lips. Waves of ecstatic feeling went 
through him at the words of murmured flattery 
he heard. She was attracted by his fine appear¬ 
ance. So seldom one met with a real man. And 
such intelligent eyes! A philosopher he must be, 
a dreamer, a poet, a prophet. 

It seemed to Yekel that the hunger of all his 
life was being satisfied now, that he was seeing 
himself for the first time in a mirror that re¬ 
flected him as the man he really was. 

He lay on her breast, with no motion in him 
except at intervals a gasping sob. It seemed to 
him as if his spirit had passed away. In his 
brain was a melodious murmuring of the name, 
“Regina.” 

And then somehow he found himself out in the 
street again. He remembered a burning kiss on 
his lips, round hard arms, and a bulk of bust. 
Thought of it all caused him to accelerate his 
steps, the farther to be removed from the scene. 
Disgust, horror assailed him. He felt an amazing 
hypocrisy in himself. He had permitted himself 
to consider this woman as one with Regina—she in 


240 


THE LOVE CHILD 


whom all the beauty and graceful motion of 
Nature were concentrated and harmoniously 
blended! His self-loathing was almost sickness. 

He looked at his watch; it was eleven o’clock. 
He must present himself at Gussie’s wedding. 
Probably they were still dancing. He would 
steal in, circle around, make himself evident. 
He would take a few looks at Annie and then he 
would steal away. 

As he walked to the place of the wedding he 
sent prayers up to heaven like the whisperings 
of leaves. Might his Annie grow up to distinc¬ 
tive womanhood. Might she, oh God, find the 
gift in life that had passed her father by. “And 
if I ever denied you, oh God, if I offended you, 
forgive,” Yekel pleaded mournfully, “and don’t 
visit my sin upon her. 

“Keep her good, keep her pure, keep her 
clean, help her, oh God, to a strength her 
father has not had, and without which no man 
is a man.” 

Feeling more pure in soul himself than he had 
ever felt before, Yekel reached Gussie’s wedding 
place. 

The halls were dimly lit, so that he had to 
grope his way up to the fifth story from where 
voices and the clatter of dishes floated down to 
him. 

When finally he was all the way up, a terrible 
timidity fell upon him. He lingered a few mo- 


THE LOVE CHILD 


241 


ments outside the door before he gained the 
courage to go in. 

LXXII 

The whiskey hummed in Annie’s brain. She 
felt curiously loose and relaxed. Wrinkled, sal¬ 
low faces became rosy and beautiful. The sweat¬ 
shop, with the paper peeling off the damp walls, 
was Central Park with laurel blossoms, shim¬ 
mering water and tall trees, bathed in a sad, soft 
spring twilight. 

Annie’s eyes darted longing looks at the door. 

6 ‘Say Ann,” sounded Libbie’s voice, “better 
don’t get drunk.” 

The little cousin giggled. 

Laughter all around. 

A bellowing voice. 

Rabbi Fishbein’s staccato blowing. 

Then the scene became shadowed. Faint mur¬ 
murous sounds reached Annie. What appeared 
to be her own hand was feeding her hot soup, 
chicken, cake, whiskey, whiskey. How wonderful 
that drink! 

Laughter seemed to be breaking out and burst¬ 
ing inside her like bubbles. Now and then she 
heard the laughter above herself. 

And now there was a dinning clatter of dishes, 
and an incessant buzzing of voices. 

Emotions of all sorts clutched at Annie with 
strange eagerness and then let her go. Some- 



242 


THE LOVE CHILD 


thing drew her eyes constantly to the door, and 
her hand to her glass. The liquor had a wierd 
fascination. In the fog of her brain she was 
planning always, forever to have whiskey at her 
beck and call, for it made you want nothing 
more. It made you care free, entirely happy. It 
made all reality dissolve into nothing. It gave 
birth to something in you complete and great. It 
was everything she had ever been seeking for. 
She would have it always, even- 

And in the act of pouring herself a fourth glass, 
while her heavy eyes labored to look over at the 
door, she beheld him—her father. He appeared 
in a fantastic mist, on a floating cloud, in a 
golden armor, throwing off green glints. 

She rose upon unsteady feet. There were 
others round and about the room. No one 
noticed her especially, not even Libbie, who was 
talking and giggling with her little cousin. 

Bubbles upon bubbles of laughter broke in 
Annie. She laughed. She laughed, while she 
floated up to the cloud where he stood—and while 
together, she in his arms, they soared upward, 
onward, nearer and nearer the sun. Music was 
afloat. Violins, banjos, accordions were pouring 
forth a grand exciting anthem. 

“We—we are married,” rang in her brain as 
she whirled round and round in the air. 

Yekel was hidden from general view by the 
musicians and others standing around, but after 



THE LOVE CHILD 


243 


awhile his eyes and Annie’s met. Yekel felt him¬ 
self go white. And when he saw her staggering 
on her feet, drunken laughter shining in her eyes, 
something seemed to snap within his soul. 

What—what calamity was this! 

Yekel’s heart was pierced with anguish. She 
w T as at his side. He took her swaying young form 
in his arms and led her out of sight of the 
others. 

They were out in the dimly lighted vestibule, 
alone. Her head fell on his breast. She was 
muttering, “We are married.” 

Her father’s eyes, as he and she sailed upward 
and onward to the sun, sent out a call to her to 
which she felt her whole being go out in answer. 
Then the call came not alone from his eyes, but 
from his voice, from his hands that touched her, 
from his arms that held her, from his breast upon 
which lay her head. 

“We—we are married,” she faltered again, a 
tender radiance lighting her face. Then, draw¬ 
ing her mouth up to his ear, she added secretly, 
“Whis—whiskey’s fine—I’m going to—to dr— 
drink it always—always now—You—you too!” 
Her voice squeaked; she gave a drunken chuckle. 

Yekel felt keen swords cut and turn in his 
bleeding flesh. He felt as if all the world’s 
wickedness had been avenged upon him. He 
clenched his fists with hatred against the abhor¬ 
rent gift of life. 



244 


THE LOVE CHILD 


With a strange eagerness he clutched Annie 
and strained her to his breast. Then he let her 
sink slowly to the floor. 

For Annie the cloud in which she was sailing 
seemed suddenly to burst and to drop her some¬ 
where where it was hard and cold. She saw her 
father turn and run down what looked like stairs. 
A sense of desertion seized her, and a crying need 
for him. 

“Papa—papa—” reached Yekel. How in¬ 
finitely tender it sounded in his blackness, how 
mysterious—how sorrowful. But he did not turn 
back. He ran on, feeling upon himself a terrible 
weight of guilt and shame. 

Annie sat up. Her eyes were luminous in the 
dim light. She flung her arms out into the air 
with a quick passionate gesture. Her whole 
frame quivered with passion. “Pa—pa—papa!” 
she wailed piteously and then, in a stupor, sank 
to the floor again. 

L xxin 

To Brooklyn Bridge Yekel flew. He sat on a 
bench, his head bowed, feeling tortured and de¬ 
stroyed, although he could feel his temples beat 
hot with life. Sitting still his body seemed to 
him heavy as a ton weight, and full of pain. He 
could have wished to fade away gradually, to sink 
into everlasting sleep. People passing now and 
then looked like phantoms, voices seemed to mock 


THE LOVE CHILD 


245 


the purpose of all being. His eyes dimmed with 
tears. He was feeling crushed under a weight of 
guilt. To his girl he had handed down his sin! 
At times he could not believe it. At other times 
the thought seemed to rush through the flesh of 
him, and tear him to pieces, each time leaving 
his faculties utterly unable to cope with it. 

It was a moonless night. More rain hung 
threateningly in the sky. 

Yekel yawned with the fatigue of his body and 
the pain of his spirit. He sat forward in his seat 
and stared down at the murky water. In the dim 
light it seemed a black sheet lazily stirring to no 
purpose. He was struck by the weird aspect of 
it. 

Gazing down upon it, Yekel felt his will asleep 
within him. He sat and sat. Scenes of his life, 
when he had sat playing his fiddle, when he had 
tended Annie, when he had stood in Seward Park 
listening to music, passed as in a dream before 
him. It all seemed far, far away, as if it had 
happened centuries ago. He was tired, very tired. 
He started suddenly and told himself that he 
could leap over the railing in one bound, and that 
what he craved would come to him—rest, peace. 

Still he sat. 

He began to think on the fate of man, how long 
he was in the making and then how like a breath 
he was turned into nothing. “Dead, he is no 
more than a dead fly, a little dust, gone, forgotten 


246 


THE LOVE CHILD 


forever.’’ How cruel it seemed. “Why,” he 
asked himself, “could a God wish to create such 
a fate?” He paused. “Really,” he thought, 
“in anger one denies God; in a softer mood one 
admits Him, but even in the very softest mood one 
must ask what manner of being can this unseen, 
unknown be against whom all revolt is so futile ? ’ 9 
He felt too tired to go on thinking. 

He got up and stood idly staring for a long 
time, conscious of the languid lapping of the 
water below. “My—my poor little girl.” Over 
and over again the words pierced his heart. 

A boat passing up the river blew its warning 
to another boat. Yekel was startled by the 
sound, which had for him the quality of a long 
wonder note. “It, too, wonders,” he said to him¬ 
self, hardly conscious of any significance in what 
he said. He stood irresolute, waiting for the boat 
to let itself be heard again. 

He looked down at himself. “To-morrow,” he 
said, “I could, if I wanted, be a dead man, a 
heavy hulk of flesh empty of grief. They would 
lift me and carry me tenderly and speak about 
me in reverential whispers.” A smile, cynical 
and wistful, broke over his face. “I am no 
good,” he thought. Then he repeated it aloud. 
“I am no good.” 

He remained motionless, staring down into the 
water, feeling a lure rise up from it. The lure 
grew stronger and stronger. Anger awoke in 


THE LOVE CHILD 


247 


Yekel against the water, strong and vindictive 
anger, in which was mingled an uneasy feeling. 
He bent over and spat into the river and, having 
done so, looked down as if to see whether the 
water had not been obliterated. 

- The water was still there. He sighed resigna¬ 
tion. His anger left him. He said to himself, as 
if suspicious of his courage, “A man must be res¬ 
olute. He should make up his mind to do a thing, 
and then do it.” He leaned forward and mut¬ 
tered as if reasoning with another person, “It 
would only mean jumping up swiftly from this 
seat, over the low railing—” 

But he remained still, and his heart began to 
beat so rapidly he felt his nostrils close up and 
leave him breathless. He opened his mouth. He 
rose and walked a few paces back and forth. He 
stopped and picked up a piece of newspaper, 
skimmed it with his eyes, threw it down on the 
ground again. He continued his pacing. Before 
him stood Annie, drunk, reeling as she had done 
when he had appeared at the door. “Is it really 
so that she is drunk!” How unbelievable it 
seemed. Little Annie! Little— 

He sank down on the bench with a cry of an¬ 
guish, then started up again. 

“Die!” a voice cried in his ears. “Die! You 
cannot die!” The voice paused. “Out of the 
land of Canaan, out of the house of bondage, ’’ he 
heard. 


248 


THE LOVE CHILD 


A great peace came over YekePs soul. Slowly 
a sense of wonder filled him. He stood stark still. 
Then with slow, even steps he walked to the stone 
railing that bordered the stone walk many feet 
above the water. 

“Should I jump in?” he asked himself. 

“Out of the land of Canaan, out of the house 
of bondage—out of the house in which you had to 
live you must lead your child, your Annie,” sang 
resonant voices in his ears. 

“Out of the house of bondage in which I had 
to live I must lead her,” he said slowly, deliber¬ 
ately. 

A new gladness began to coil itself round and 
round in YekePs self. He began to feel benevo¬ 
lent. Plans formulated in his mind. He would 
take Annie away to a country, to some place where 
there were trees and grass, where she could fill 
her lungs with perfume-laden air and feed her 
soul upon the sight of birds dancing among the 
flowers. He himself would work as a farm hand. 
Why not? Had he not muscle and sinew? Now 
then, if Mira could not make a living with the 
bands, he would send her a regular allowance out 
of his wages—yes, a regular allowance. Mira 
should know she was married to a man, little as it 
had seemed so heretofore. Gussie’s wages would 
no longer be forthcoming; he would be the pro¬ 
vider. 

YekePs heart swelled with his determination. 



THE LOVE CHILD 


249 


Suddenly he felt himself become dizzy. He 
flung his hand before his eyes. Slowly, as if out 
of the bowels of the earth, there rose a white 
supple hand, holding a tumbler. The whiskey 
in it sparkled like a golden sun. Closer to 
Yekel’s mouth it drew—closer still. . . . 
Deep blue eyes looked their softest down into 
Yekel’s. . . . 

1 ‘ Eegina! ’ ’ 

It was a cry of anguish. 

Yekel plunged his hands out into space and 
battled as if with all the great world and its hid¬ 
den forces for his freedom. 

Then, “I can’t! I can’t!” rose up out of him 
between low sobs as he sank limp against the 
stone wall, losing his balance. 

A great sense of danger swept over Yekel, then 
left him abruptly. Dimly, he was conscious of a 
swift flight through the air, then of water—water 
—water- 

LXXIV 

Isaac Schaefer cried, “And now, ladies and 
gents, we are through with the telegrams, with 
the good eats, and it’s time again for the dentsing. 
Now you will have more strength for dentsing.” 
He turned to the three men. “Here, musicians,” 
he cried, “there—now—play!” He clapped his 
hands vigorously. “A KazatsJce —” (a jig). 

Gay music burst forth and mingled with a 




250 


THE LOVE CHILD 


deafening shuffling of chairs and tables pushed 
back into corners. 

The noise roused Annie. She sat up and 
listened. Then she remembered. A beast that 
had been as if asleep in her bosom stretched itself 
and suddenly bounded to its feet. A sharp fear 
stabbed at her heart. 

She rose from the cold floor and stumbled to¬ 
ward the door, muttering, “My father—” She 
was aquiver with apprehension, founded on a 
vague memory. “My father, my father,” she 
kept on repeating. 

She advanced a little into the room. 

She shivered as the musicians’ tune broke out 
louder, gayer. A man was approaching her. 
She fixed longing, hungry eyes upon him . . . 

Was it her father? 

It was Isaac Schaefer, with outstretched arms. 
“Ut here you are,” he cried. “I want a dents 
wid de college sister-in-law off my best friend and 
partner. I want a dents—” 

Laughing, he encircled Annie’s waist and drew 
her into the room. He began to whirl her around. 

She wanted to resist him, but did not. Instead 
she took care to step in time with him. Her body 
grew light, fighter, light as down. Gayer and 
gayer grew the music—and she, too, was gay. 

She wanted to laugh. . . . But her father, 

where was he? 

She was whirled about so fast she could not 


TEE LOVE CHILD 


251 


distinguish one person from another. . . . 
As soon as the dance was over she could make 
a thorough search for him. . . . 

The music came to a stop with a hang. 

Isaac Schaefer’s arms relaxed. Now she was 
standing still, with her hands before her eyes, 
feeling herself going around and around and 
around. How funny! 

She took her hands from her eyes, looked up 
at Isaac Schaefer, and then about her, fixing her 
attention finally upon a bottle and a glass stand¬ 
ing on a window ledge. 

She started, shrank, decided, and went reso¬ 
lutely toward the window. Isaac Schaefer, 
thinking she was going to sit down, followed her, 
anxious to have the next dance. He kept spilling 
hits of laughter and compliments on the way. 
“Fine dentser. . . “Like a bird . . . 

light. . . 

At last the window ledge. . . . 

As if preparing to resist Isaac Schaefer’s dis¬ 
approval, Annie turned and faced him folding her 
arms, staring at him with a half defiant, half 
questioning look. Isaac stood waiting for a sign 
of her intention. 

When he saw her bend and lift the whiskey 
bottle, he had a sudden flash of realization that 
she had already drunk too much. “Uh, lady, 
lady—” he said cajolingly, and attempted to 
draw the bottle out of her hands. 


252 


THE LOVE CHILD 


Annie folded her arms again, bottle in one 
hand, glass in the other, and hugging her folded 
arms, began to laugh silently, swaying her body 
lightly as she laughed. 

How absurd it all was—worry about papa— 
papa—Isaac Schaefer—mama—weddings. It was 
really all a mania—how very plain everything 
was now—a mania—crazy— 

She laughed and laughed, silently, swaying her 
body lightly. 

But Isaac Schaefer was not entering into her 
mood. He still looked as if he would like to 
snatch the bottle and glass away from her. An 
inspiration! Now’ she would win him over. . . 

She turned her back in a flash, and in a flash 
she had the glass filled. She turned again. An 
inviting, subtle smile was in her eyes. She drew 
closer to Isaac and raised the glass to his lips. 

“Drink,’’ she said, 4 ‘drink. It will do you 
good!” 

A moment’s pause. Then Isaac Schaefer 
snatched the bottle and glass away from her. 

The musicians struck up again. 

“Come on now,” commanded Isaac. 

Anger like a sudden flame leaped up in Annie. 
She raised a hand to strike him. As suddenly 
her anger died; her hand fell slack. Quivering 
apprehension, founded on a vague memory, re¬ 
turned to her. She drew her hand slowly through 
her hair. She glanced as if unknowingly at the 


THE LOVE CHILD 


253 


bottle and glass in Isaac’s hands. “My—my 
father,” she murmured dolefully. 

Isaac Schaefer put down the bottle and glass. 
“Come on,” he said, “dents wid me—” and he 
whirled her away. 


« 


THE END 








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